The Sunchips website posed a unique problem in that they wanted a flashy website without building the entire site in flash, for maintenance reasons. Without placing too many restrictions on the designers, I was able to take a fairly complex site design (HTML wise) and build a flexible website with animation peppered throughout.

Getting lots of layered semi-tranparent pngs, javascript animation, and flash elements to work in harmony on multiple browsers was a challenge that at times seemed like it would be impossible. With Internet Explorer 6 not supporting transparent PNGS, and Firefox having issues with transparent Flash videos, some clever tricks and hacks had to be implemented to get everything to play nicely together.

The homepage is a hybrid of Flash and HTML in order to get the video of the wheat field to play smoothly. The promo signs at the bottom of the site had to be replicated in flash for the homepage, and the animation had to remain consistent across both HTML and Flash versions. The Healthier You section has various pop-up messages that fade and animate into place. The Healthier Planet section transitions content pieces using subtle fading effects. In the Advertising section an animated carousel is used to display both print and video advertisements. Flash was used in the Flavours section for complex animations not possible with JavaScript. The use of subtle animation and interactive elements throughout the site creates an engaging experience.