Review of the Singularity website

I have visited recently the site if the Philadelphia-based web agency Singularity. They have a beautiful flash website, introducing a playful loading animation with a man spinning a ring. The website grabbed my attention through its unique personality, so I decided to explore their work and see, if I can learn something valuable for myself.

What makes the website distinguishable is its combination of carefully thought-out elements. Here I'll share my own observations.

Gradients and Blur

The background is made of blurred white clouds, which are positioned in the middle of a two dimensional gradient. It goes in the x-axis from dark green to dark blue, and in the y-axis from light to dark nuances. I could see some effective use of transparency, which resulted in color overlays in the corners.

Transparency

The menu has one transparent element, which moves horizontally to mark the active menu choice. It ends with an arrow, pointing to the content pane. I couldn't figure out if the arrow was placed deliberately, as the content area remained static.

Smoke effect

When a new flash "page" is loaded, a smoke effect comes up above the man and his personality changes. There is a unique animation on every page, except on the "Work" page. That's why a smoke there isn't so intuitive.

Man animations

The sympathetic three-dimensional variations of the man's animation add a visual interest and awake our empathy. Sometimes they could interrupt readers, which happened to me when I came to the last paragraph of the "About" page.

Caroussel element

This page has also some interesting effects. When you mouse over a project block, it flashes nicely for a moment, but the effect could have been more subtle. The difference in the brightness levels between the block's normal and hover states is noticeable and the transition duration is fairly short. A horizontal carousel element appends and removes project blocks to a queue using blur and scale effects.

Overall Impression

This short review on one of the most visually appealing websites I've seen lately wasn't accidental. Some of the site's ideas could spread more widely in the future.