Marc Hibbins • Projects

JCB Fastrac Xtra

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June 2010

A standalone rich-media microsite for JCB's new Fastrac Xtra tractor.

Presenting the improved performance, versatility and drivability of the new 3000 series, the site gives users an interactive tour of the tractor, highlighting its USPs by way of an exploratory interior panorama and a photographic walkaround of the exterior.

Acting as a central hub for all media channels, the site is the primary call-to-action for the new tractor launch. Built to be served both online or offline the site will deliver content accordingly, intended for use at exhibitions around the country as well as an online resource for customers and dealers alike.

A combination of Flash and Javascript created a compact and uncomplicated solution, produced on an incredibly short timeline. Already multi-lingual capable, the site is only in the first phase of an ongoing development as the site grows and more content is added post-launch.

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The Plastiki

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November 2009

The Plastiki is a one-of-a-kind 60-foot catamaran made out of 12,000+ reclaimed plastic bottles setting sail on a cross-Pacific expedition from San Francisco to Sydney.

The Plastiki Expedition microsite is an extension to Adventure Ecology's existing portal, a hub to track the adventures of the five-man crew, their live location, expedition schedule and learn about critical environmental issues affecting our oceans.

The site features a number of webisodes, filmed and uploaded by the crew at sea, video footage and photography of sites of ecological importance visited along the journey. There are also regular editorial updates by way of a blog.

Built using stunning 3D imagary and videos produced by Peter Rubin of Iron Rooster studios, the site offers users a unique opportunity to explore The Plastiki yacht and a highly interactive learning experience to highlight the cause.

Note: Since the expedition completed, the microsite has been redeveloped by another agency, reappropritad under the 'Explore the Plastiki' section of the site.

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BBC Orchestras & Singers

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May 2010

The complete design and build of a portal for the BBC's full-time orchestral and vocal groups, including the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic, to promote their live concerts, keep up-to-date with broadcast information and to learn about classical music.

The Orchestras portal consists of an integrated home page aggregating content relevant to all the groups from various parts of the BBC across TV and Radio and six individual sites tailored to suit the unique identity of each performing group.

Each individual site hosts a concert diary and facilitates ticket purchases. These diaries feature a multi-faceted metadata filter, allowing visitors to browse by date and genre and find related performances by other groups.

All of this is powered by a bespoke XML and XSLT-based content-management system created by the BBC. We also created a bilingual version for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

As well as facilitating bookings, each event page allows users to review the concerts once performed. Each microsite features audio and video content enabling the ensembles to market themselves and their concerts more effectively — each site is maintained by a respresentative of the group.

The portal also features a number of resources to learn about music including a guide to the orchestra with a plentiful supply of iPlayer-enabled audio and video samples for the various orchestral instruments and interviews with professional musicians.

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BBC Live in London

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November 2008

BBC Radio 2 Live in London was a major music event taking place at the IndigO2 venue at the O2 arena, featuring acts including Adele, Duffy, Keane, The Feeling and James Morrison and was presented by Chris Evans.

This website is the online compliment to the show, conveying the atmosphere of the event and giving users a taste of what it was like on the night.

As expected, the site adhered to the BBC's standards guidelines. Particular care was given to accessibility and usability.

Ease-of-use was key to accommodate the typical Radio 2 listener, who tend to be less web-savvy than other demographics. The design isn't too loud or brash, but reflects the energy of a live performance with subtlety and sophistication, in-line the grown-up and polished personality of Radio 2 and its audience.

The site was built on the BBC's Major Music Festival Templates (MMFT), the framework used for all its online music event sites. This left the responsibility of styling the pages, writing Javascript and producing accessible alternatives to Flash assets and integrating BBC plug-ins such as the iPlayer. There was also a live Twitter feed to be transformed with XSL.

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Stephen Colover

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August 2010

An online gallery for the work of photographer Stephen Colover.

The portfolio is presented as a Flash-based gallery, driven by a simple content-management system that allows Stephen to upload photo thumbnails and high-resolution images that will automatically update the site.

From the initial thumbnail grid view, each image can be viewed individually allowing users to zoom and pan around the huge photographs in order to really appreciate the detail in the work.

The site takes advantage of the Flash Player's full screen mode, removing all browser chrome and screen furniture so to fully immerse yourself in the collection.

When not viewing at full screen, the site has been designed with a dynamic fluid layout — making use of the full browser window and positioning objects intelligently, repositioning when resized and making good use of the space whatever the screen-size.

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ESPN TV

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November 2009

A site to partner ESPN's new digital sports channel, providing information relating to the channel schedule, connect with a network other sites such as ESPN America and ESPN Classic and to establish ESPN as a credible sports provider in the UK.

The majority of the site was created with traditional HTML,CSS and Javascript with dynamic PHP-driven elements, designed with a versatile template to accomodate the range of sports featured. The schedule however was powered by XSLT, transforming cron-produced data from a system kept up-to-date by the content editors.

There are a number of Flash promotional panels and reusable media players, all of which were created in-house and required accessible alternatives.

Another key function of the site was to capture user details for newsletter publications, competitions and various other email subscriptions. This, on top of the rest of the site, resulted in a substantial database back-end and content-management system.

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Create & Breathe

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November 2009

Create & Breathe is the freelance persona of Gareth Leeding and a portfolio of his work to date.

The site is built in Flash with a simple single-file XML system for updating and deploying content. Each project contains a number of image, animation or video pieces dyamically loaded and served by the site.

Video playback is acheieved using the Vimeo Moogaloop API, able to access Vimeo-hosted files and integrating the familiar Vimeo video player compoment.

Animations and standalone SWF files (of both Actionscipt 2.0 and 3.0) are able to be loaded safely and without run-time error, meaning no changes are required to any completed work in order for them to be showcased on the site.

There is also a non-Flash, mobile and iDevice-tailored version of the site which will alternatively load if accessed by those agents. It loads content from the same source meaning no extra work or maintenance is needed when submitting new work.

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