For this week’s blog, I decided to explore and analyse some examples of immersive websites I’ve found to help give me more ideas for my project.
Joshua’s World is a portfolio site which uses a simple but incredible 3D environment as its central concept. The site is a small island with a cycling figure which moves when you drag in either direction. As you progress around the island, content and links appear relating to the profile and projects for the portfolio. I really like how this site is really impressive with its 3D models, but doesn’t go over the top and still feels focussed. The act of literally going on a journey works really well at immersing the user and I really like the idea of having a central hub to launch experiences. While I wouldn’t want to go fully 3D, I think there could be a way of incorporating this central hub into a 2D site which would be a more interesting approach over the usual home screen.
Mirrows is an NFT studio that has a really interesting website. It uses a purely monotone style with a lot of line work and simple animation. I really like the simplicity of this site and how it compensates for its simplicity with chaotic new-wave typography. The variation of arrangement, sizes, and structures creates a really dynamic feel to an otherwise minimal design. The animation on display here works really well too; there’s a lot of it, but it’s all very simple; reflecting the typographic choices. As animation is something I want to include in my own work for this project, I really like this style where a lot of simple animations are used, rather than super complex ones. It’s using animation just to lift the design and make it feel lively, rather than design around a complex animation.
Swedish Burger chain Tugg has a really simple but effective website which has great immersive quality. It just had a really lovely balance of images and animation which all integrates really well with the content. I especially like the 3D-rendered images as they really bring depth to the screen. While this is a simpler example of an immersive website, I think it’s important to look at examples like this as well as the super complex 3D websites, as it shows how much can be done immersively with just some simple techniques. The scroll animations are really nice and I like how they’re not always the centre of attention, but rather a flourish on the often overlooked parts of websites like horizontal rules or footers. It’s subtle but really effective and I think it’s important to sometimes not be completely all-consuming in immersive design.
Artisans d’idées is a French interpretive design studio whose website is pretty incredible. The home page is a long animation of a beam of light flying through many environments, with the user being able to illuminate areas. The part of the site I particularly liked however was their work page, which was arranged like a museum wall, reflecting the type of work they do. This has all the bells and whistles you would expect from a 3D immersive website, but I just really like the arrangement here which reflects the core of their work. I’ve been looking at an old TV21 annual for my project research, and have been dancing around whether to fully lean into this styling for the project, but I think seeing here how effectively arranging content in a way from your inspiration can be, I will definitely go down this path.
