The owners of the Fishcakes, an architect designed house overlooking Seal Rocks beach front, invited us to stay. It is without doubt the most spectacular beach house we’ve ever visited. Although the building seems high and potentially exposed the design is such that its incredibly private while affording 180° views of the beach, ocean and bush.

Their website needed to convey that same sense of tranquility and relaxation that we experienced whilst there. A simple calendar, schedule of tariffs and contact form are the only features that interrupt the beautiful photographs.

Thanks Fishcakes!

For Sydney florist grandiflora’s recent redevelopment we’ve built a gorgeously designed Drupal theme incorporating custom Drupal & Ubercart modules. The site is lavishly illustrated with photographs by Gary Heery, designed by the lovely Yolande Gray with a timelapse of a magnolia opening by Ian Hobbs. Needless to say Saskia and all the flowers are loving the new site!

Store keepers can now sell seasonal flowers that are on the floor today. With a couple of clicks roses are out and tulips are in. Photos from the morning markets go up straight away to Twitter where they are syndicated to the grandiflora blog. Customers can log in to the site and create reminders for their future special events – never forget another anniversary! Still underway are a social style guide to help the staff communicate their brand effectively and an upgrade to their electronic profile including forthcoming EDMs.

In preplanning a project now underway I’d flipflopped every couple of days about the web framework that I thought I’d use for it. Discussing it in house on various occassions I’d managed to convince Cossioski one way and then another railing on avantages of one over another.

On the day the build commenced I thought I’d finally decided on Wordpress and so, picking up my new Wordpress 3.0 pick, proceeded to break ground.

Which went surprisingly well. The new menu builder is a boon and would have saved a lot of fracking about that we’ve done in the past. Quickly I had framed up the information architecture of the site and was uploading content. Theming began and things took on shape.

Doubt set in. Was this going to be Too Easy? All the things I got for free with Wordpress and our own wp-plugins I’d have to create from scratch in Drupal. But would I – once again – get eleven tenth’s the way through before realising the folly of my decision? Be staring from the Comfy Chair of Wordpress into a performance abyss fuelled by a Scotch / SQL-distored haze? What could be done?

Split test. Good old A-B. Tools went down. Drupal came down and with the old `drush en cck` I was off. Up came the frame. Up came the types. On goes the theming.

One day each and both sites are in the same state. So which one to pursue ?

Firstly there was the inital reason that I didn’t try Drupal first. With our inhouse Attachments plugin for Wordpress we get video’s with associated poster frames for free. With Wordpress we get attachment sorting for free. How do I do that in Drupal?

A middle of the night revelation solved that and sent me into the split test. In Wordpress video’s are attachments of gallery items. Posters are children of videos. To replicate that in Drupal I realised that I could make separate content types for videos and use node references to tie them to gallery items. And interestingly (news to me) if you use autocomplete for node references instead of select lists or checkboxes (for multiple references) you get sorting for free. Nice!

Ok. So now some lists.

Ups and downs.

Theming. Wordpress easy. Drupal hard.
Admin interface. Wordpress overburdened. Drupal tidy.
Content reuse. Wordpress hard. Drupal straightforward.

The Gap

My knowledge of Drupal’s ajax methods is currently zero. Gap.
If we need tags – Wordpress can’t tag pages. Wordpress can tag posts but can’t parent posts. It gets messy quickly and goes around in circles. Gap.

The Decision

Drupal. More stuff builtin. More content reuse (node references). Fiddlier to content fill (node references). But a tidier editor view (no cruft). Harder to control HTML. Better caching. Faster page building. More unified user interfaces for content editors (drag and drop sorting looks the same everywhere). Admin themes.

But Wordpress was a pretty close second.

Location: Bondi Junction Westfield atrium, Bondi Junction, Tower 1

When: July 2007

Zina Kaye installed Hyperplex, an intervention within a sophisticated LED system that disrupted the media saturated environment of Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre with a series of obscure, but subversive conversations. Shoppers and flanneurs were able to peek into the lives of several people who corresponded via the LCD system. Three pairs of characters: an eloquent couple who have moved from lovers to best friends; an eccentric brother and sister who correspond through coded exchange; and two teenagers tossed about by their desires, ’spoke’ to each other in a mix of colloquialisms, aphorisms, sayings and mixed metaphors.

The conversations dealt, in part with the proliferation of the language of fear. These tensions were subtley translated within Kaye’s script from different generational perspectives. Viewers eavesdropped on part of a conversation and could contemplate the familiar yet fragmented nature of interpersonal communication.

To view the work and artist interview:

Zina Kaye: Hyperplex interview and installation

Press:

Hyperplex – Ella Maudie. ANAT Filter 67.

Active Loitering – James Dodd. ANAT Filter 67.

Text Messages: Zina Kaye, Caia Hagel & Tim Georgeson – George Alexander. ArtAsiaPacific No. 56.

Hyperplexic, desalinated by not scary – Ann Finegan, Artlink Vol 28, No. 1

See also:

What’s in Store: Visual Merchandising News – Amanda Carr. WGSN.com, September 2007.

T100 October 2007 Visual Merchandising Report. T100.cn

Zina Kaye.

We can help you determine the most effective and efficient ways to use social media to increase awareness about your brand and projects. Social media doesn’t have to be tiring. We can help devise a strategy that keeps your profile active with minimum effort.

We can also pull in media files, posts, tweets and comments from these sites to enrich your own website. Take a look at the Sydney Dance Company media+social page as an example. Or give us a shout and we can go for a foot massage and sort it out.

The House of Laudanum’s team scripted a story set on the proposed site, then created two one minute videos for the competition. Combining three-dimensional models, live action footage, graphic elements and environmental sound, these videos were a dynamic elaboration of the standard architectural renderings and models.

Many of the architectural team were closely involved with us in all stages of the creation of the videos. Their design process and our own fed back into one another’s work, informing and enhancing the final submissions.

Against a strong field that included multinational developers and world-renowned architects, the second stage of the design competition was won by the Sydney team.

“The winning plan draws on an understanding of the site’s place in Sydney – its physicality, history, scale, program and potential – to propose an authentic new piece of the city.”

– Philip Thalis, Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects.

This ‘tattooed’ chalk head from the Manning Strait in the Solomon Islands represents a Tindalo – the spirit of a dead man who, in his lifetime, possessed great mana or power. It was traditionally placed in a sacred spot associated with the man. The Australian Museum acquired the head in 1911 from Mr Percy Black, a shipping company employee. It is smaller than it looks at 150mm high and 90mm wide.