Bells & Whistles...

"What People think about our work is all the quirky stuff, things they aren't expecting to find. You can't plan those details". Preloaded's Rob Corradi and Paul Canty on bells and whistles.

The design is becoming an ever more corporate business. Yet rather than lead to homogenised, soulless designs, there's every indication that lessons learned in other areas of advertising are already being applied to the Internet.

Clients now realise that a slick homepage peddling the hard-sell isn't enough to capture the attention of clued-up Web surfers. With flamboyant, quirky and artistically-mindad sites capturing the imagination and ultimately benefiting a brand or product, it is little wonder that Preloaded has become such a success story, with a client List featuring such names as Microsoft, EMI, BBC Choice, MTV, Coca-Cola, and Hammer & Tongs.

Founded in January 2000 Preloaded deals with all manner of digital media, from Websites to viral marketing to interactive TV.

Although three of us have been in new media since 1994, none of Preloaded's clients were actually poached, "they've all come to us through natural causes," points out Rob. "We've been quite fortunate that we've never had to hunt for work, and any times when new clients haven't been coming through the door we've always been busy working on existing projects anyway.

Flagging itself as a collective, Preloaded works with contractors and freelancers as necessary. "We regularly use six or seven key illustrators," says Rob. "When we're dealing with a client, we'll usually show them a range of work from the various artists. On top of that, we make use of another company for content management. We're still very much hands-on though. I'd say about 75 percent of the work is being handled by the four of us".

Preloaded's first clients were Decca, Freeserve and Kellogg's, involving the creation of animation and graphics for artist microsites, broadband content and a mini-game themed around a cereal bar. A job working on viral marketing, for Codemasters' Colin McCrae Rally game, followed. "The Decca work came through a friend of one of the directors, while one of the lead designers on the Colin McCrae game was someone who used to work with us," says Rob. "Back then, there was obviously still a lot of work going around. We were a small team unhampered by the processes that can slow down workflow in larger companies. It helped us make a lot of new friends."

Aside from its commercial ventures, the team tries to devote time to a number of internal creations, The latest is PodDealer, a combination of screensaver, web application and arts project. It's a not-for-profit endeavor, though Preloaded does intend to re-use the technology for future clients, PodDealer is a freely-downloadable executable file (around 4MB), and due to be available soon from www.poddealer.com which takes advantage of idle time connected to the Web, by downloading interesting content selected by Preloaded and displaying it on screen.

"It's an idea I've had for several years," says Rob. "It's easier to see it in action than explain it. The idea is for it to become a platform for established and unknown artists. The program will suck live content from the web and can play Java, QuickTime, Flash content and so on. The program is now finished and we're getting together the first batch of content. We've got quite a few people interested in contributing."

Preloaded's office is PC-based, with a range of top-of-the-Line 2.2GHz Pentiums, each kitted-out with GeForce 4 graphics cards and half a gigabyte of RAM. A single Mac is on hand to test for cross-compatibility. "We all started out in this business with Macs, but when you're running your own company it makes sense to be careful with money," says Rob. "PCs simply give bigger bangs for the buck."

The four most-used packages at Preloaded are Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Director. "We don't use things such as Dreamweaver," adds Rob. "We tend to build by hand." A few projects have called for 3D modeling, requiring 3ds max and Maya, but Rob stresses that file size considerations mean such things are something of a luxury.

Well known for its inventive use of Flash, it's no surprise to discover that the team's experience with the software stretches right back to the early days. "I started using it with the MSN Website back before Microsoft was really convinced the Internet was going to work," recalls Rob. "It was called Futuresplash then, and was really a very basic animation tool, used for little more than creating rollovers. Then a little while later it was snapped up by Macromedia."

When it comes to today's versions of Flash, Preloaded is obviously Limited by commercial concerns. "We tinker and play with the latest version, but we'd currently only use for standalone work, such as a viral marketing piece," he adds. "Flash 5 only reaches 80 per cent of people, so we wouldn't recommend anything higher to clients."

Rob's previous work in the videogames industry is visible in many of the projects, particularly on the Tongsville website created for video directors Hammer & Tongs. "I was introduced to design through the 8-bit era of videogaming, the time of the Spectrums, Commodore 64s and Amigas. Back then, I worked on International Athletics and a version of the Rocky Horror Show."

"Video games have got the ideas and elements that keep people interested down to a tee, so they remain an influence and inspiration," explains Rob. "I'd say that most of our work is quite fun-looking and playful. That's happened by the by, it wasn't planned. It's just that our early work reflected that and therefore it is the kind of work we have continued to attract."

"It's almost at the point now where, even though we do brand-based Websites, the end product is as much about the site as the actual product," adds studio co-founder, Paul Canty. "We leveraged that for the work for Hammer & Tongs, and it even carries through to the new site for Coca-Cola. Visitors can simply enjoy the site without interacting with the brand, though of course, the ideal design has the two things working in harmony."

Although Paul holds a degree in fine art, his role at the studio is primarily based on project management and client liaison. "Initially we would work on a project-by-project basis, but we're trying to build relationships with clients, so we can work more closely with them on branding and provide strategic thinking," he explains. "We can then start thinking more about cross-media links, linking mobile, web and so on, looking at the bigger picture,"

Most recently, Paul has been working with MTV on a project that's set to take Preloaded into new territory: interactive TV. The project also differs from previous ones in that Preloaded is working as a consultant rather than a pixel pusher.

"MTV has another partner who handles the building work, so that we focus more on developing a plan for content for the year ahead," he explains. "It's our first major break in this area, where we've been selected for our creative outlook rather than our ability to build the actual content."

This consultancy based approach has been the goal since Preloaded's inception, but it was out of the question in the beginning. Now that the studio has built up such a strong reputation, clients such as MTV are only too keen to give the team creative rein. Additionally, MTV was attracted to the idea of using a team without prior experience of interactive TV. Choosing Preloaded was a conscious move to use designers unfettered by current interactive TV design.

"In the long term, we're looking to achieve a balance, doing more of this kind of work but also keeping a hand in the building process of other projects," concludes Paul. "What people like about our work is all the quirky stuff, the things that they aren't expecting to find. You can't really plan those sorts of details because they only get added during production. And we definitely don't want to lose that."

Originally printed in Computer Arts Magazine, August 2002.