Festival TransAmériques Website

Yes, I have a day job… and at times, it’s a drag. The day to day grind to make a buck takes its toll on everyone I suppose, but I think I have a severe, innate aversion to the 9-5 (or 10-7). Yet sometimes, as was the case at last week’s Boomerang awards, that feeling subsides for a bit and I’ll step out to appreciate the rewards and recognition from my peers in the industry. I had the honour of being awarded two grand prizes for two very different websites I art directed/designed over the last year. The team behind both these projects, from IA to integration, gave a superhuman effort, so I think a little ego-stroking is in order…

The Festival TransAmériques website won the grand prize in the ‘Event-based Website’ category, barely beating out the website for the Elektra Festival. The site offers a content-rich presentation of the avant-garde Dance and Theatre festival’s programming, coupled with an experiential navigation set in an atmospheric, abstracted Montréal.

The Bell Shareplans website won the grand prize in the e-commerce category. As far as I’m aware, this is the first e-com website to successfully implement a drag and drop interface (without the use of Flash to boot!). The site has proved so effective that it is now being used in Bell’s storefronts as well as as a training tool for their employees.

Congratulations to all my colleagues at Fjord for a big night, pulling in 10 awards and 5 grand prizes. Hopefully we’ll be able to use this recognition to push for even more creative projects in the future. And congratulations also to all the winners, proof that interactivity is still alive and well in Québec. Mes coups de coeur: Yako and Varial‘s site for Ubisoft, and ‘newcomers’ Double-Echo Création‘s site for les Allusifs and Ariane Moffat.