Dragon Interactive — Dream, Design, Code.
As you may have seen last night, the homepage is now up. Other pages aren’t. (Yet.) Most of them are simple but I want to fix all the bugs and make any changes that I’ll need to first, before duplicating it to 20 pages and then having to change all of them.
Safari is the preferred browser for the site—it can handle alpha PNGs and motion better than any of the other browsers (yes, that includes Gecko). So the other browsers have the Apehlion™ motion engine disabled, but in Safari you can see the full header. I’ll add more images and colors over time, like with the splash series.
Or in case you missed them, there’s a few of them saved over here. But these ones were pretty experimental…
Keep checking back as new pages and changes are added! I’ll post them as comments or edits whenever I do.
For now, I’d love to hear your opinion & feedback in the comments.
Comments
This place isn't ALL about me — just mostly.
Nizam Bashir
2 years, 8 months ago
Awesome design, Anand. Throw in any other superlatives you’d like. :) But site design aside, just think you might need to rework the design for “Dragon Interactive” logo. It looks dated.
Anand
2 years, 8 months ago
Yeah I know what you mean, I might eventually redo it and make it more modern looking. Straighter lines, sharp corners etc. But I had to have something to use so for now it’ll do.
Just changed a bunch of stuff on the homepage. Redid some of the images and added a construction notice thing. Going to setup cookies, etc. now…
Josh(ua/y)
2 years, 8 months ago
Quite nice-looking for sure, but the dragon image looks an afterthought - regarding what Nizam said, perhaps the dragon could be integrated into the logo or something? Also, it’s all little dark and dreary colour-wise.
I’m not a big fan of the rollover effects - the kind of fading effect. It makes the navigation system seem clunky.
But that aside: super job so far, Anand.
Josh(ua/y)
2 years, 8 months ago
Sorry about the double comment but I have noticed two other little things:
- The mark-up doesn’t vaidate
- The favicon is different on www.dragoninteractive.com and dragoninteractive.com
Will
2 years, 8 months ago
It has a nice first impact on me but after that it just seems too grey and colorless… Something I didn’t expect from you.
On another note, why so many stylesheets?
Anand
2 years, 8 months ago
Added /services/identity (and the general content page type) and some other changes that i cant remember now.
oh, and a footer.
Chris
2 years, 8 months ago
Design is looking original.. other than the obvious Apple influences…
Question: Why not just use Adobe’s Flash?… its common knowledge that JS performance (for animation/tweening) is below par.. and this site really demonstrates that point well.
Please do not say its for accessibility reasons.. (poor iphone).. I’m just saying it would take 10 minutes to make a similar animation in AS3.. and would perform much better… you might want to consider at least playing around with it some… It really is a good tool to quickly prototype ideas. (google tweener) and if you now JS then you know AS3…
But really impressed by the new site.. and look forward to its completion/evolution.
Cooper Mor
2 years, 8 months ago
Ha, you proved me wrong! You launched when you said you would, hats off to you.
Not totally my style, but very impressive.
Anand
2 years, 8 months ago
Chris: yeah I considered flash, but I’m really not a fan. Especially for content. The motion was pretty experimental but I think it turned out pretty nicely on a small scale (and works well in non iphone safari). I need to figure out a way to disable it for iPhone safari as well, though…
Though who knows, someday I might get into flash… in this project I wanted to push javascript to the limits. I think it’s a lot more elegant solution than flash, and more universally applicable (in interfaces/web applications). I’ve seen a few sweet flash websites, that had a lot of cool effects and flair but they’re generally only good on a small scale. I’ve never seen a forum, blog, etc. in flash.
For example, on http://dragoninteractive.com/services/identity , Codename In Rainbows applies gradients the text on the fly. And its smoother/more elegant than using flash, I’d say. Javascript motion has its limitations as we’ve seen, but I’ve also found that having flash (even SIFR) also makes a page feel sluggish, especially when scrollling.
Cooper: Thanks :) To be fair its not completely finished but I’d rather spend more time and tweak each part as I go rather than just pump out the whole thing.
Chris
2 years, 8 months ago
Another thing I just had to mention is that load bar, It really is smooth but gets old on each page… and since its not actually loading its not always needed… Also the page needs some sort of delay before it runs the animation (a simple img preloader) so the animations and loading don’t clash so much.
I’m sure you already thought of this :P
Anand
2 years, 8 months ago
Hmm, maybe you have to fully reload and reset your cache/cookies but…
a) loading bar only happens the first few times you visit the site. I think its 4 or 5 visits and then it sets a cookie to stop coming up.
b) animations have been disabled fully (that is, not in safari anymore), which is partly the reason for a. if the animations did happen, the loading bar is layered above that stuff and should cover up everything/ no clash.
So im not sure what you’re seeing..
As a sidenote, I’ve built almost all the pages—so no more links to 404’s. Most of them are still not populated though.
Chris
2 years, 8 months ago
The logo looks tens times better :)
Anand
2 years, 7 months ago
Haha Im not sure what youre referring to Chris but thanks :)
Just added a working contact form (what a nightmare!) [going to style it soon, next]…
And fixed up some of the page contents.
Next up is the portfolio and timeline. Production will be flaky from here though, trying to focus on Girlgamer and school.
Those were all the comments. But don't be shy — Add your own!