BKWLD's website for Drexel University, centred around cinemagraph-style videos, is well worth checking out. We discover how it was made.
Inspiring the next generation of design talents with an enticing website
Drexel University wanted to find an interesting way to inspire and recruit potential students. BKWLD came up with Get Going Today - a site featuring a series of shareable cinemagraph-style videos. BKWLD creative director Jeff Toll says that by using HTML5 the team were able to “reach mobile devices with animation and sound - something we were unable to achieve with any other technology".
The Drexel site is built using HTML5-specific features such as <audio>, <video>, localStorage and the History API. Thanks to Backbone.js, the BKWLD team found working with the History API a breeze but, as Toll explains, working with video was more challenging. “Our developers have a strong Flash background, where working with video is far more predictable and flexible. Many hours were spent learning how different web browsers preload video, along with tricks to clear it from browser memory.”
These issues mean video has been cut from the tablet version of the site because of playback limitations. Ultimately, Toll believes that “even with inherent limitations, open source combined with HTML5 allows us to push the web forward.”
