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Welcome to Rain Creative Lab.

University of Asia and the Pacific is one of the prestigious universities in the Philippines. The university is well-known for its holistic program and its 2- year masteral track. The school offers courses in Industrial Economics, Polical Economics, Integrated Marketing Communications, IT, Education and Business Management.

Continuum is the annual yearbook of University of Asia and the Pacific graduating batch. The yearbook comes with a bonus Interactive CD. UA&P graduating batch 2006 asked us to design and develop the Interactive CD. The project came with many fun challenges that pushed our skills to the limit.

Key point challenges:

Organizing all information into one usable data set and integrating, collating and translating various file formats into usable data format
Making the batch web feature interactive and easy to use and navigate
Enabling users to search the students listed in the batch by names
Designing the CD using the theme of the batch
Making sure that CD will run in Windows and Mac.

Client Brief

UA&P Batch 2006 wanted us to design an interactive CD with the following specifications:

It shoud have a Batch Web, Friend Explorer, Games, Event calendar, Student search.
It should have a gallery and personal profile for each student.
It should be easy to use, interactive and engaging.
It should be visually compelling that reflects the dynamis of the batch.

We started the project by identifying two important points: the technology and the data. The yearbook's interactive CD needed to use data- intensive applications that require extreme organization and management. To solve these problems we came up with an effective way to manage these data. We developed a simple platform to import data and integrate them in our database. From the database, we created usable data format in the form of XML files. We managed multiple XML files that contain various information, collections and configuration of the Interactive CD. It enabled us to manage our data and integrate them into the Interactive CD application.

After we tackled the data issue we settle on using Flash as a platform that allowed us flexibility in design and in interactive and development components. XML integrates well with Flash so we consumed XML data sets with ease in Flash, which can run on both Windows and Mac.

As for the design, it underwent into a series of changes and revisions. We experimented on various layouts, interactivity tests and animation. Once we got the right set of animation and design, we worked on the functional area of the project. We used various algorithm to search and sort data sets from XML and cached them to improve performance. We utilized the object-oriented feature of Flash to get this working properly and integrated the search function to various features such as the profile pages of the students and the infamous batch web explorer.

The batch web was a feature that enable the user to explore the connections of the students. Just like a web, one can dig deep into all of all available networks of friends. And it needed to be navigable and interactive. For example, through this future, the user can drag the student photo and place it in any available space. By using some cool tricks in our arsenal we made it possible and it was revolutionary.

This project was highly challenging technically as we had to tackle unique problems in data and functional requirements. However, ultimately Continuum 2006 ICD gave us the opportunity to solve problems in a more holistic manner integrating design and development mindset.

Activities / Services

Creative Direction Created the design for the Yearbook that reflects the dynamism of the batch.
Flash Design / Development Developed interactive CD in flash and pushed the medium by creating various creative features.
Student Search Mechanism Provided a search mechansim for student information and integrate this facility throughout the whole application.
Batch Web Created an interactive batch web that shows the connection of each students to their friends and classmates.
Data Organization Organized, collated and integrated heterogeneous information from students and developed a data organizer platform to assist as with the process.