Can you talk about what you thought the Reef1 website
should be conceptually? What were some of your thoughts about typeface choice or was that decision left
open for you?
Reef was an interesting project, nice assets; the client called us and said they wanted an amazing site,
very dynamic lots of energy and motion. Then we go down to meet with them and they tell us all about their newly
redefined brand that is all about simplicity and clean lines. They showed me a print ad and said we want it to
look exactly like this, but we still want it dynamic and full of energy. It was basically the home page you
see on Reef (if you have not rolled over anything) minus the word menu in the upper left (which they
wanted to remove initially, but fortunately for the users, we were able to talk them out of that). So, the
challenge was, “How do we make this simple, clean style dynamic, but also reinforce the new brand and not
fight it?” I found the solution in their tag line: “ALWAYS ON”. To them this means three things: your always
having an on day out in the water; your shoes are always on; and you’re always turned on (notice the photography).
I thought it would be interesting to make a site that was always on, making it respond to user mouse movements,
as opposed to a forced mouse click. This makes the site feel like it is always “on”, watching your movements and
responding almost like a machine. Also, all the reaction motion was designed to flow, giving the site a very
fluid, almost liquid feeling. The client was stoked and we were very pleased with the end result. As far as the
typography goes (a subject close to my heart) , the client asked us to be consistent with their print ads, which
was fine with us. DIN is a great face.
Good to hear that you’re still very active in the actual design of projects. Do you find it harder to
find time for hands-on design?
Yes, being a creative director is a job that pulls you in many directions. Being an owner on top of that pulls
you in even more directions. However, I did not start this company to be a cheerleader or one of those guys that
uses lots of ambiguous words and hand gestures to paint some vague picture that the talented staff under him make
into reality. In order to be effective in guiding others I have to be in the trenches with them. The product we
create is always evolving and you have to do it to know how to evolve it. At least that is my opinion. Plus, I
flat out love design. I have a quenchless passion for exploring design, both visual design and interactive design.
My experience with projects and clients and presentation and communication are valuable to the office, but what
drives our work is my personal commitment to design and quality. Without that, we would make a living producing
OK work for clients. But I’m not content with OK work. I will fight myself, my client, my partners, whoever I
have to, to make the work as good as I can. If I were not doing the work, it would be easy to fall back into a
business mode and make sure we produce good quality work within the budget. But, the reason I made the sacrifices
I did in starting and building this company with my partner Steve was to strive to do inspired work — not just work.
At this point I look at the work we have done and am proud of the work on one hand, and on the other, I want it
to be more; I want to grow more; I want to explore more; I want my team to do the same.
What are some of the other sites that you’ve worked on recently?
Shimano XTR was a pretty fun project for a great client. The content was pretty amazing, as well.
It is a site for Shimano’s cross-country mountain biking components, which has been in development for 5 years.
They completely rethink mountain biking when they design this line. So, when the line is released it has a host
of new technologies and approaches that need to be communicated to very technical audience. However, these
features and technologies are complicated and many are brand new concepts. Therefore, you cannot just list
these in a text doc and expect people to understand what the hell you’re talking about. We had to carefully
show these features in context to the components, and really reinforce the key concepts in an impactful way.
Plus, the components have a serious coolness factor and that had to be reinforced in the site, as well. A
big portion of the site is animations that we executed in Max and then weaved together with information
graphics in Flash. We were all really happy with the end result and the client was totally stoked. The
reaction from the target audience was fantastic, as well. The site got 100,000 visits in the first week
of soft launch alone. They got tons of emails from users telling them it was the best site they had ever
seen on the web, which is what the site needed to be to truly reinforce what the XTR line is to mountain
bikes — the best, most well-thought-out and crafted components available. Not that we believe that the site
is “the best site on the web” (not even close), but we do believe it is the best in its space and that
makes the statement that needed to be made.
Aside from the technical demands, the site must have been a blast to create.
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