2Advanced Too Much?
July 17, 2003 15 | Comments (Closed)
I just saw the new 2Advanced site.
From a motion design and entertainment perspective I thought it was pretty cool, nothing too original and way, way too slow to load, but cool. They have some nice interactive elements and features, and some that seem to be a bit of an unneeded hinderance. I’m curious to know what others think of it.
Part of me thinks that it’s a great site for what 2Advanced does and part of me wonders if they toned it down a bit they might be better served. I think there is a place of the Web for this kind of site, I’m just not sure where exactly that is anymore.
Related musing: Whatever happened to Gabocorp? Anyone remember when they were the absolute flashiest Flash site around?
Filed under: Web Design
Comments
1. Lea said:
Yes, I saw the 2Advanced site myself, and my first thought was “Neat!” And then the next was… “Do I want to see this long intro everytime I visit this site?”
It’s like those RPG video games. Where the first time you see a long “summon” of a magical creature, it’s cool. But after the 100th time you summon it, you just want a fast forward button.
I think it’s suited for 2Advanced target – clients w/ big bucks in the entertainment industry, used to seeing these things on TV and movies. Or clients most likely afflicted with ADHD. ;) I think it’s place is strictly in promotional, interactive sites. Any of 2Advanced’s more “corporate” fiddlings seem way too robotic to me. And inflexible.
That’s my 2 cents.
As for Gabocorp – jebus, that’s still up??
Posted on July 18, 2003 09:04 AM | #
2. Paul Scrivens said:
Yeah, its cool, but for our purposes it can get repetitive. However, they do really well of showing their content to the audience they target. Looking at their client list I see there is nothing that I would do and I think my design style wouldn’t fit in with what their clients want. They have their market and obviously they are good at controlling that market. More power to them.
Posted on July 18, 2003 10:52 AM | #
3. Keith said:
Well, my main problem with the design is that really, it’s nothing new. There are 800 other sites that look pretty much the same, at least in style. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen a site that I thought was really new, fresh and cool.
Lots of people pointed out the CBCRadio site, and it’s nice, but ever seen Heavy? Hell, I built a site prototype similar to that two years ago for Connexion (boeing). Where is the new stuff?
I mean, if your going to go with an all Flash site and take yourself out of typical Web design norms anyway – why not really go for it and come up with something great.
I guess I had hoped for something really awesome from them and kinda got more of the same old stuff. But then again, maybe that is the best thing for the goals of their site.
Posted on July 18, 2003 11:16 AM | #
4. Keith said:
Oh and Lea – You wouldn’t be talking about Kingdom Hearts would you? Love that game…
Posted on July 18, 2003 11:18 AM | #
5. Lea said:
Hehe… Actually, I was thinking more of the Final Fantasy series which is known for it’s beautiful but overly-long summoning sequences.
But Kingdom Hearts also applies. ;) Cool games. They probably should program the games where the gamer has a choice of seeing the ENTIRE sequence every time or a shorter one when just going through the game.
Posted on July 18, 2003 12:06 PM | #
6. Nick said:
I am not sure I am seeing the same thing everyone else is seeing here. The site to me looks like every other high-end flash site I have seen since PrayStation 2 came out some time ago. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice looking and somewhat functional, but I really don’t think they are breaking any new ground here. There is nothing about the site that makes it any different then any of the Flash sites that came before it. I would however, like to see if they did anything dynamic in the backend. The UI, while impressive could have been done with CSS and more accessable web technologies… now that would be very ground breaking. It would be great to see the designers of 2 Advanced teaming up with someone like Doug Bowman or Eric Meyer to present something this impressive with more accesible and usable technologies. I believe this kind of UI can be done with a nice set of javascripting and slick CSS. Call me a standard freak but I am more impresed by nice UIs like this that are also very functional, in other words, somehting I can print and bookmark pages of. Form always follows function.
Posted on July 20, 2003 08:56 PM | #
7. Joshua Kaufman said:
What Nick said.
Posted on July 21, 2003 07:24 AM | #
8. Keith said:
Nick, that is almost exactly the point I was trying to make. I was looking at it from a motion design standpoint and even then I was thinking it really wasn’t all that great – let alone as a Web site design.
I really like the idea of someone trying to work out a site like that with CSS and accessible Web technologies, but I’d also like to see something new come out of the whole motion design arena you know?
Posted on July 21, 2003 10:06 AM | #
9. lincoln said:
I absolutely agree with Keith in wanting to see something more evocative in the emotion/motion design field. I’m always am looking for sites that have the ability to wow the viewer, to provoke in me some sense of awe, wonder and emotion. Without question, flash has a wonderful ability to be an integral part in the storytelling process, it just how well you tell the story.
The good news: somewhere out there is some kid with a head full of dream to realize and he is doing it with whatever tools necessary. the bar is being raised; just don’t look for it at 2advanced. Instead, perhaps at look at what they’ve done for some clients. A good example of the art being raised, I thought, was SecondStory out of Portland, who had a wonderful site based on Egyptian tombs that was both informative and entertaining to experience. In addition, levitated.net repeatedly blows my mind with his fusion of math, creativity and flash.
The bad news: as far as 2advanced, I felt their site just under whelmed me due to the incredible amount of hype surrounding it. You have to admit; it was laid on pretty thick and perhaps that was their biggest downfall, if anything. I didn’t know what to expect but whatever it was that I was expecting it wasn’t what was presented. Granted, I still felt dumbfounded looking at it as well as felt at ease playing with its functionality. It boasts a very intuitive UI and layout(which they’ve never been known for), which I’ll absolutely agree could have been rendered in XHTML and CSS with some additional, flash to present the ‘thematic story’. One could argue that it perhaps should have been. Indeed, it was painfully slow to load on dialup, without nary an indication on how long one must wait. Still, upon repeated viewing, it seems to present themselves, their art and craft and perhaps more importantly their company, rather faithfully. I think it suits and serves them and their client base very well. I have to imagine that for their website they didn’t want to take it too over the top, into extreme experimentalization in motion, layout, and navigation. That is for another time and place. Instead, it embodies a wonderful theme, told with style and elegance and shows off their company.
the water effect was well done. If anyone knows of anything that tops it, do share!
Posted on July 21, 2003 06:46 PM | #
10. Kevin said:
Here’s my 2 cents: Since 2advanced’s strongest skillset is in motion graphics, I think they’d be better off in the motion picture industry or television entertainment. Think about it - since the introduction of Flash many designers have tried to attract and entertain visitors to their sites by using impressive Flash animations and techniques (which is great) but they’re missing the point. The existence of the WWW began as a place where information was easily accessible and shared among many. It still holds true today but others try to morph the WWW into an entertainment machine. Rather than trying to impress visitors by showcasing your cool Flash skills, instead, focus on how to serve them. This is how I see it: Run your site like you would run your business. If you want to cater to the “Big guys” and a small portion of the market, thats fine. But overall, that doesn’t say “Customer Service” to me.
Overall, I was more impressed with 2advanced’s work in the early stages when Eric was dabbling with new Flash techniques and presenting the public with what he was learning. The focus was on himself, yes, but he was also showing other designers what could be done with Flash. Now, it seems as if 2advanced is too busy promoting themselves and creating all this hype rather than promoting their clients and the technology behind each site. Why do you think their site hardly has (if any) in-depth case studies on their clients and the technologies that were implemented on their sites? Seems like they’re just too busy showcasing all the visual work.
In closing, since 2advanced is GREAT at visual stimulation and creating hype - I think they should either stick to designing sites and media for the entertainment/sports industry and leave the corporate business sites behind, or put their web efforts aside and focus on creating multimedia projects for motion picture/dvd.
The internet’s core existence is to SERVE users by delivering accessible information to increase knowledge. If you want to look at the web as a form of entertainment (other than pc gaming), then you might as well treat it like a damn television.
Posted on August 27, 2003 01:00 PM | #
11. Paul Coan said:
Hi all, )I hope you dont mind me posting on here) I just wanted to say 2advanced site just did not make me sit back in my chair and think wow! and i think that is what they wanted to achieve I think their goal was to make people so in-awe of the site that the content came second (you know what I mean?). But to go back to an earlier comment I am 22 and have spent the last year and a half! designing my website full-time in order to start a company the site is nearly ready (should be in the next month) and everyone who has seen it is amazed my goal was to make a site which simply made people gob-smacked it would be interesting to see what you guys think of it so I will post again when it is live if that is ok with you guys.
Again my site is full flash and yes css and xhtml would be great but the purpose of this site suits a purely flash based system.
Posted on August 30, 2003 07:22 AM | #
12. Mike said:
Yo, I happened upon the 2advanced site from designiskinky.com and I was stoked. I had never seen anything like that until then and I haven’t seen anything like that since. To me the site serves it’s purpose of showcasing an incredibale amount of technical skill and stylistic polish. It trips me out how those who wrote above me dog it as being nothing new… hmmm. I’d like to see the new, so if someone could post something that busts up 2advance’s site i’d be stoked. Another thing, I’ve showed people that site and they inturn show me a site that they believe has a better UI and it always turns out to be something super simple and boring– I think there’s definately a trend toward that right now. Then peple talk about how the complex sites take too long to load. That erks my brain. Who’s still using 56K anyway? Is there someplace where a brother can get some demographics on that sort of thing cause I’m thinking that if I had the ability to turn out a product of 2advances caliber, to the audience that they’re aiming for, I wouldn’t be too concerned about that particular deemographic anyway.
Posted on September 9, 2003 04:03 PM | #
13. Bubba said:
I actually love the new 2advanced site as well as the last one and the one before that. I have as yet to come accross another site of its calibur(not to say there isn’t). They are selling Flash sites and what better way to do it? As far as form before function, I believe they have hit a good mixture of both. A very intuitive UI design that says to me, “The Future is now” so before I get left behind, I had better hone my skills! There are many Flash sites out there that are trying to sell Flash sites, yet 2advanced to me is marketing exatly what they can do by example, there is no other way except perhaps “bullshitting”. A good comparison would be www.egomedia.com, great site if you want to play but it sells me nothing. The new 2advanced site inspires me to learn more and also gives me a good idea of where the internet is as far as a medium for presentation. it’s amazing how we have forgotten about things like netscape 2.0 and Animated gifs and how amazed we were when we first tried to punch the monkey.
I dig it….
Posted on October 27, 2003 11:30 PM | #
14. Joris Meermans said:
All that comments, I don’t know. First of all I want to say that their Prophecy site is just fine. There indeed is a skip-button for the intro (which I think is cool). And all u criticians (spelling? I’m Belgian…) please take a look at their portfolio, not bad I think.
I’m looking forward to experience their next version.
Greetz.
Posted on March 17, 2004 03:51 AM | #
15. digital said:
I agree with a lot of the comments. 2advanced has kind of gotten into becoming corporate claptraps, refining their style to the point where theres nothing new, to appease so called professionalism. My favorite was probably the first one, if maybe they could mix the 1st and 2nd together that would have been awesome. The new site, its colors are interesting to say the least, but it kills a computer like mine and the fps lags, detracting from the site appeal. Im not a fan of minimalism, because the web initially was not made for design, it was made only for the use of information sharing, and design has dug its claws into this field, so overboard and underboard the like, are something too look out for
Posted on March 21, 2004 12:22 PM | #
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