It’s a new year, and as ending dates with a ‘12’ rather than an ‘11’ begins to feel less foreign, let’s take a look at one buzzword from 2011 that I see taking off in the year ahead.

And no, it is not the overly hyped (and largely misused) buzzword “HTML5”. I’m talking about “responsive design”.

In 2012 and beyond I think we will see responsive design becoming the norm rather than a novelty. Last year saw a huge jump in site hits from non-desktop devices, surprisingly so for some clients. We are starting to see Apple lose its stranglehold on the tablet and smartphone industry, as cheaper (and oft times better) alternatives abound and become more popular.  E.g. It’s estimated Windows Mango will jump to 20% market share by 2015!

This means an increasing amount of devices are now driving web traffic, resulting in your site being viewed in a variety of different screen sizes.  Numbered are the days of developing a static sized site to 1024px and perhaps including a mobile redirect to a site tailored for iOS mobiles.  The solution resides in responsive design and adaptive layouts.

For those not in the know, responsive design refers to the principle that design and development should respond to a user’s behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation.  The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries.

Essentially this allows for one site to be served across multiple screen sizes without tainting the user experience.  This requires a little more planning in the initial design and speccing stage, not merely from thinking about flexible grids and image scaling, but also from a content point of view.  As screen resolution gets smaller, the screen real-estate and content served become more important. Although this is generally considered ‘adaptive layout’, it goes hand-in-hand with responsive design.

Let’s take a real life example. A multi-columned layout with a large feature image and fluid menu with hover states on the desktop, would actually display as single column layout with no feature image and a touch based / select menu in a mobile browser.  Seeing a site with good responsive design is almost magical as the content shifts and scales to the window dimensions before your very eyes.

With sales of smartphones and tablets set to surpass that of PC’s in the next 18 months, it is becoming increasingly important to think about the user experience from a range of devices. Responsive design done properly provides an elegant solution for this and somewhat future-proofs your web/app content for the ever evolving digital environment.

When we started Liquid in 1999, we were deliberate about combining technology with creativity. Our first project was to develop our own online animated series and from this humble beginning we built a global animation studio and digital creative agency. Even then, back when MSN and Yahoo! ruled the roost we were developing new and innovative ways of combining creativity and technology into products and services.
Since then our business and the industry has grown and flourished in ways few could have foreseen, but that we knew would be exciting and interesting. Positioned at this nexus and with the added advantages of sophisticated strategic thinking, we have been able to deliver projects in areas such as entertainment, education, online marketing, games and mobile by combining these essential elements.

The development of animated Intellectual Properties by Liquid Animation such as iGutso for Disney and Ziggi the Zebra for Sesame Street, creates opportunities in transmedia storytelling , games and apps development as well as cross-platform marketing and social media campaigns.

Together, Liquid Animation and Liquid Interactive harness the power of online engagement and combine this with world class creative and design. Executed correctly with the right strategy and it’s a compelling proposition that will help propel online marketing, entertainment and elearning well into the technical and creative future.

Yesterday’s article in the Courier Mail is a testament to how far we have come in the past twelve years and our vision of creating a collaborative multiplatform creative enterprise that will continue to provide jobs and growth to Queensland.

Ziggy The Zebrasaurus

2011 has been another massive year for us at Liquid. Our team has grown to a point where we’ve literally kicked our directors out of their offices to allow more people to fit in. There have been many highlights work-wise, and we’ve all had lot in our personal lives too (an engagement, several marriages, new babies, not to mention a flood!).

We were in the spotlight a few times throughout the year. You may have been one of the 80,000 visitors who experienced Liquid Interactive Light Scope, a digital installation we built as part of the Brisbane Festival. Or seen us in the news with our success at the Lord Mayors Business Awards where we took out the best award of the night, or as our Rainbank project was launched by none other than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II!

Business-wise our hard work and dedication has paid off. We’ve developed and built upon some great relationships with clients new and old. Our aim of building long-term client relationships has seen some exciting new business relationships developed with new clients such as Devine, Aussie Apples, Brisbane City Council and Bidvest to name a few.

We had some interesting activities throughout the year too. Amy and I travelled to Cairns in September to attend the VII World Avocado Congress, where we saw presentations from marketing teams from various countries around the world. Chris, Rob and Matt had several outback trips, including a helicopter shoot for the filming of our SEQ Water virtual tours. The guys also whipped around in the Isuzu D-MAX for the Dick Diesel Movember campaign. And Chris even made his way to the Opera House in March to manage the visual effects for a live-streamed performance by the Australian Ballet.

We dove into new technology with client work created for Android, iPad, in HTML 5, using Cloud Computing, with Xbox Kinnects and motion sensor cameras, Interactive projections, and of course social media.

We also participated to help a few good causes, most recently Movember, where we had 12 Liquid boys growing seedy mos for a month. We all bought bandanna’s to participate in National Bandanna Day for CanTeen. We also created an iPhone app for Cystic Fibrosis Queensland and attended their annual ball.

Finally, our portfolio of work grew quite substantially and I thought we could share a sample of the work we launched this year:

Devine Corporate Website
Australian Avocados Facbook Page
Disney Fish Hooks Microsite
Disney Cars 2 Flash Game
Sydney Water Virtual Tours
Isuzu UTE Movember Campaign, Dick Diesel
Aussie Apples website
Bidvest Corporate Website
Arts Queensland’s QUEENSLANDERSIGN Website
Malteasers Apps
Youth Art Queensland website
Attorney General’s DisasterWatch apps
Our own Christmas dance

Overall we’re very happy with our achievements this year, and have thoroughly enjoyed working as a team with all our clients in 2011. Thank you to everyone and Merry Christmas!

Isuzu UTE Australia is once again a proud partner of Movember by donating a new D-MAX Ute to the cause. To promote this, we’ve developed a quirky Facebook campaign to get the word out.

Meet Dick Diesel, D-MAX enthusiast and Mo lover. Combined he is a man on a mission, a mission to find the ultimate Mo in his D-MAX. He is the official D-MAX ambassador, and he wants to get the word out that if you reach $250 milestone for Movember, you’ll automatically go into the draw to win the new D-MAX!

Dick Diesel already has a D-MAX, so he wants to do his bit to allow other D-MAX lovers, not yet an owner of the awesome D-MAX, to join the club.

The campaign is designed to encourage registered Movember bros and sisters to post their photos with a link to their Movember account to Dick Diesel’s Facebook page wall. Each day, Dick will judge the Mo of the day and send the mo-dollars their way!

It’s a fun way to engage the male audience, and using Facebook we’re able to maximise campaign reach, in cost effective ways. If you’re participating in Movmber this year, ‘Like’ Dick Diesel and follow his road trip around Australia, in search of the ultimate Mo, in his beloved D-MAX.

Liquid Interactive were approached by the South Bank Corporation late last year to develop an interactive zone for the Rain Bank project. The Rain Bank is an innovative storm water recycling project which harvests and treats rainwater and runoff from the surrounding urban area and provides the parklands with a new source of treated water for irrigation. Liquid developed an interactive panel that allows users to manipulate a video wall from within the plant which they can view. Through a combination of 5 different videos, audio and light-scape highlighting the actual plant equipment, users can learn the entire Rain Bank storm water recycling process and the history of floods and stormwater in the area. Each of the 5 videos have soundscapes composed specifically for the project and highly detailed 3D animated content.

Liquid also developed a robust and secure platform for displaying the video content triggered through the use of data acquisition boxes. The software was developed using a .Net framework.

Additional to the video display, an interactive outdoor sign was developed, inviting the public to change and adjust water flow, simulating the processes in the plant room.

MB’s view from today’s launch -

Last night Liquid Animation and Liquid Interactive attended the presentation of the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Business Awards 2011 at the Brisbane Convention Centre in Southbank. The Awards are to recognise and reward excellence in business.

We are very chuffed and proud to announce that Liquid won not only the Nova 106.9 Award for Business Creativity but also took out the Optus Business Platinum Award for the most outstanding winner across the 10 categories of entry. Liquid Animation Managing Director Steve Viner accepted both awards and spoke about the family roots of the company and the importance of quality staff to our success.

For a creative industries company to get this level of recognition is a major achievement. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk praised our success, saying “Liquid Animation is a true Brisbane success story.”

This morning we woke to David Koch (who hosted the awards with Sofie Formica from The Great South East) talking about us on Sunrise and articles on Liquid in major newspapers from Sydney across to Perth. All the attention is a great reward for the work we do and we look forward to continuing to bring the rest of the world to Brisbane!