Allied Works Architecture was, at the time we created this site, a small firm that was starting to really stir things up. Brad Cloepfil, its founder and chief architect, was a brilliant emerging mind in the field, and he'd just completed the work that would truly launch his career: the new Wieden & Kennedy headquarters in Portland.
But making a web site that aligned with Brad's vision required tossing aside all assumptions about how a web site should be structured. He didn't want the work divided from the philosophy. He didn't make architecture that way. And then, trying to write copy on behalf of a very articulate and particular man was proving to be nearly impossible.
So we worked out a concept that not only did not divide content into inappropriate siloes, but that also used Brad's own words as the navigation. We took one single, concentrated, powerful paragraph from his writings and then unfolded all the website's content as if the navigation was an exegesis of his words.
The resulting Flash site won a Gold Pencil in the One Show Interactive, a Flash Forward Award for navigation, was a CA Site of the Day, and ended up in some books about web design as well.
My role: Co-creative director (with Jeff Faulkner), experience concepter, and copywriter.
