As the 2006 competition draws to a close, I
look back on the outstanding entry field in
awe. Simply put, I am blown away at the level
of work that is out there and how designers
and developers continue to reinvent new ways
to use technology to achieve their marketing
and communication goals. As a tribute, we conducted
interviews to share more information about the
winning individual or firm responsible for creating
the best of category entries in the 2006 competition.
Infivia
:: communication visuelle WINNERS INTERVIEW
- Alexandre Gravel
Q. Give us a background of
your company.
Infivia is an advertising agency located in
Montreal, Canada. We service our clients in
all media, including interactive, print and
adveritising. We mostly work with SMB (Small
and Medium Businesses) and cultural organizations.
Q. What is your approach to developing interactive
media solutions?
Our focus is not to develop the latest whiz-bang
site. When working with a specific industry,
we will look at what is currently missing or
what Infivia’s experience with a varied
clientele can bring to this project. We like
to do cross-industry matches in terms of approach
or technology used. Another strong aspect we
will focus on is ergonomy and usability. We
will often test interface approaches on project
with a target audience that is willing to experiment,
and then validate the findings to see how we
can use what we learned on other projects.
All project will either have a Freak-Factor
or a R&D factor. No matter what the project
is, it will either test new visual approaches,
new interfaces, or it will develop new libraries,
classes and objects that will be used in future
projects.
The basic goal is to avoid at all costs recipes
and been-there-done-that interactive development.
Q. What was the creative inspiration for your
winning project?
We were approached by Araz Artinian, a young
documentary director, who had in hand countless
hours of interviews with Armenian Genocide survivors.
The interviews were shot against a black background
and when watching them, you basically could
close your eyes and simply listen to what they
had to say. The voices, the emotion, the accents,
you could feel the importance of these events
in their lives and how it touches everyone who
listens to them.
They became the soundtrack of these events
and this is what we decided to put forward in
this project: their voices, their emotions,
told to all visitors.
Q. What technologies were involved with making
the project?
Right from the start, decision was made to
use Flash in order to be able to use the voices
of the survivors and create an seamless atmosphere
throughout the site.
Q. What were the biggest challenges to making
the project and how did you overcome them?
As mentioned, we envisioned a website where
the experience allowed visitors to meet each
survivor in its province and listen to their
stories. We re-created the map of Armenia in
1915, and built an interface that allows visitors
to travel from one province to the other. To
maintain the seamless experience, a complex
sound mixer was developed. It allowed for real-time
mixing of ambience, music and voice, adapting
itself to loading times, visitor clicks, etc.
This creates a strong soundtrack unique to
each visit.
Q. Did the project achieve its goals?
Our goal was to present the events of 1915
to both the Armenian community and the general
public. Most websites that deal with these events
offer visitors long texts, statistics, written
testimonials, but none were able to actually
make visitors feel what happened. This was our
goal.
We have received hundreds of positive comments
from Armenians and from others who told us they
had never experienced this with any other website.
It is just like having a grandmother or grandfather
tell you his or her stories, just for you.
Q. What trends do you see in interactive media
production today?
There is a lot of talk about Internet 2.0 and
basically what it brings is what the web was
built for: communication between individuals
without regards to location. We have seen so
much experimentation in design, trying to impress
with any visual candy available. What I am saying
is not new, this trend started a while ago:
let’s make the web useful and let’s
have as much people as possible participate
in the process.
Q. What are some of your favorite websites?
For me, the web is about being useful. I often
turn to news sites, both general and for the
advertising industry. My bank’s website
is also high on the bookmark list. Oh and let’s
not forget Google Maps.
Q. What projects are you working on now?
As a spin-off of the Twenty Voices website,
we are developing a powerful online lesson engine
that will allow teachers to integrate genocide
education projects into their curriculum. Our
focus is to create a visual metaphor that will
connect directly with the reality of today’s
teens.
We are also working on the online component
of a new television quiz show that will be broadcasted
in early 2007, and we are putting the final
touches on the first phase of an intranet that
will basically allow one of our clients to integrate
in one system all its employees worldwide.
