While working at Freestyle New Media (as it was known then), I helped secure a series of projects for EA, quite an achievement for an independent Midlands digital agency at the time. I was briefed to conceptualise a community site for The Sims 2, their upcoming life simulation game.
I created three different routes, and this was the one selected. Being a community site, it needed to be flexible and capable of handling an ever-growing range of content. Back then, EA would typically have two sites, a flashy launch and marketing site often built in Flash, and a separate community platform.
This was long before smartphones, and years before HTML5 and CSS3. I’d argue the internet was better then, more experimental and interesting. Photoshop had only just introduced layer groups the year before, and this was the first project where I really went to town with handcrafted, high-detail interface design. A small update in a tool opened up a whole new level of creative possibility.
I created three different routes, and this was the one selected. Being a community site, it needed to be flexible and capable of handling an ever-growing range of content. Back then, EA would typically have two sites, a flashy launch and marketing site often built in Flash, and a separate community platform.
This was long before smartphones, and years before HTML5 and CSS3. I’d argue the internet was better then, more experimental and interesting. Photoshop had only just introduced layer groups the year before, and this was the first project where I really went to town with handcrafted, high-detail interface design. A small update in a tool opened up a whole new level of creative possibility.
