pViewer is a light image viewing and eCommerce solution. It’s an  easy to implement web app for all amateur and professional photographers that would like an elegant gallery to showcase and ultimately profit with their work.

pViewer app

The app is now being used extensively by photography studios like Almeida-Caria and Multifoto, , among many others.

Top bar

The Top bar includes:

• the gallery title
• a progress bar indicating the entire loading process
• black square dots indicating the ‘location’ of selected photographs in the overall loading process
• a switch between two different thumbnail navigation modes: Grid and Slide,
• the amount of photographs acquired
• the total price

Gallery 'grid mode' navigation

The Grid mode includes also additional information:

• the current ‘page’ of thumbnails
• the total number of ‘pages’, automatically updated according to the last thumbnail loaded
• the number of images loaded
• the total number of images

selected image/photo

The selected photo:

• the photo ID
• selection of the desired photo print size number of units

checkout

The checkout:

• form with
• a list of selected photographs dimensions with a thumbnail

After checkout is concluded the user [and the site's admin]  will receive an email listing all the photographs acquired, including all the selected sizes as well as the prices. It also include payment instructions.

checkout mail

We used the CSS3 @font-face feature, tweaked to be compatible even with older browsers [we're looking at you IE6], to allow the usage of a non web safe font.

The clients desired a very minimal, text-oriented design. We limited the graphic to a single line that, starting from the top right corner, constructs the search box, until reaching the left  side and branches itself into the menu and menu subitems.

AICA/Ministery of Culture - Visual Arts & Architecture Prize dynamically created list of past winners

AICA main annual event, the AICA/Ministery of Culture – Visual Arts & Architecture Prize has a dynamically created list of past winners and their profiles. Each profile on rollover will show a small thumbnail of one of the winners most know work of art or architecture. This page also includes a random slideshow of all the prize winners.

All the associates profiles are also dynamically loaded via AJAX.

Events > Gallery

FLOW new site is now officially open at http://flow-lx.com.

The site’s main objective is to showcase the great work of Marta Ivens Ferraz, a flower stylist and designer, and the FLOW store in Lisbon.

Ranging from arrangements for large events to a variety of personalized floral compositions, her work already transpires enough chromatic richness, design and texture for the whole site.

The layout is very content oriented, with minimal ‘noise’ from navigation and framing.

The loading intro [image below] was inspired in vintage magazines covers, a certain 50′s Harper’s Bazaar vibe, let’s say.

Intro

Also check FLOW new blog, http://blog.flow-lx.com, for the latest news and announcements.

Almeida-Caria.com is our first fully dynamic, javascript-only, ajax driven website. It uses a grid layout, dynamically created using the site’s own structure.

It was crucial avoiding the typical single page loading from the server, therefore all of the site’s content is accessible at once on the landing page.
We developed a loading procedure that fetches all of the content sequentially, parse it accordingly to its nature, while rendering each content holder ‘module’ and positioning it in the ‘grid’. A red bar below the main menu indicates the loading status.

Home Page

The layout will immediately reflect any added or removed section by the site’s administrative system. This will also occur on section sub-menus like the Portfolio and Services modules.

We wanted to prevent the usage of the browser’s horizontal/vertical scrollbars, requiring us to create alternative methods of navigation:

Logo Hidden Navigation

1. The main menu, located on the top bar is the site’s “standard navigation”. When a menu’s item is clicked, the layout grid will slide vertically and horizontally and center the targeted content module on the screen. “Inactive” modules have half of the opacity than the current section.
2. We created a keyboard navigation using cursor keys [← ↑ → ↓]. It allows the user to “maneuver” the layout in any direction, as long as it has any content module to “land on”.
3. Selection can also be done by clicking any visible “inactive” module.
4. Finally, a “secret” navigation was added to each module: clicking in each of the rectangles [representing each one of the site's sections] will activate the module represented in that location.

keyboard navigation screenshot - navigating the 'grid'

The portfolio modules use our recently developed pSlideShow javascript class, connected to the site’s database, to refresh all the images.

Portfolio>Events (pSlideShow example)

Each module grid-like logo is also created on-the-fly from the site’s tree structure. And like the layout, it will mimic the site’s tree structure.

Almeida-Caria.com is complemented with a social network presence in Facebook and Twitter.

Our aim was to use specific elements of the Henrique de Carvalho exploration itself as the main material of the site’s structure.

It can be reached at http://socgeografialisboa.pt/projectos/2010/henrique-carvalho.

An early teaser [last image] show the main layout framed using ornaments from that specific timeframe. This version was later substituted for the present one, a more visually ‘subdued’ layout.

early teaser

The main idea behind the site was to encapsulate Catarina’s two main core businesses: Events and Family Photography.

With that in mind two different ambient or themes were created, allowing the user to choose beforehand the type of content he wishes to see.

Even tough one can easily switch from one theme to another within the site, the main focus was to strongly separate those different contents visually.

Catarina’s new site uses our administration backend application, pAdmin, to edit, modify or add all of the site’s content.

Home / Theme Filter

Events Theme: Welcoming Screen

Events Theme: About Me

Events Theme: Gallery

Family Theme: Welcoming Screen

Family Theme: "Kids" Gallery

Family Theme: Press

Contact Form

Navigation 'Corners': Social Networks, Language Switcher, Blog

Requested for a recent Ginsana online advertisement campaign, this project was developed within a very tight schedule. Based on our ever growing pLib code library, this served as a starting point for a structure that will be used, hopefully, in many future games.

Basically it consists of “special tiles”, randomly distributed on a grid, and as long you remember them in time you should pass to the next level!

Home Page: includes 2 clickable promotionals spots from partners/sponsors

The site for Argonarms [http://argonarms.com], the brand created by Bruno Baleiras, a young portuguese artist, was recently updated by Plura.

Bruno’s brand of work is mainly focused in customized redesign of various electric appliances. The idea was “born of a personal necessity to oppose the monochromatic dullness of this type of objects of daily use” where urban art like graffiti plays a major part in the overall aesthetics of the final works.

Later and as complement, it became necessary to engage in other interior design interventions, like furniture, wall, etc. as a mean to create fully customized and decorative environments for each client.

About Me Section

The site’s structure was completely rebuild from scratch, using the latest Actionscript 3.0 based framework from Plura, pLib. Its ‘bandwidth footprint’ was reduced to almost half given the modular structure on which it now operates.

Customized Appliances Gallery

The site’s content is fed via pAdmin, Plura’s administrative system, allowing, among may other things, an easier and faster updating of all the media displayed.

Customized Appliances Gallery

The site also showcases his recent launch of a small clothing collection where parts and accessories are executed manually and as a limited edition.

Street Wear Gallery

A contact form, connected to the client’s mailing list application.

Contact Form

Additionally, and in order to complement Argonarms web presence, 3 social networks channels were created, namely Youtube [http://youtube.com/argonarms], Twitter [http://twitter.com/argonarms] and Facebook [http://facebook.com/argonarms].

Youtube, Facebook & Twitter channels

Located some 85km northeast of Lisbon, the city of Santarém was the target of the IV SIL Ideas Competition, which consisted in the renovation of the city’s bullfighting arena and its adjacent area.

Spain and Portugal have seen some of their arenas [ie. Palacio Vistalegre] evolve into multiporpose buildings housing commercial areas, alongside its most notorious function. The latter also has to accomodate different types cultural and sport venues.

The entry by João Bravo da Costa and Tiago Simões focused on the cultural history of the city and region, mainly its equestrian and bullfighting aspects. A surface covers and envolves the isolated ring structure and the new, loosely distributed, program.

The Atrium, Main Hall

The Atrium, Main Hall (entrance view)

A revival of equestrian culture integrated in the city’s urban fabric, inspired by some examples throughout History, was our main goal; building a public stage to captivate an audience and celebrate said culture.
Last but not least, the multipurpose nature of our proposal would attract a very diverse range of activities and events and therefore gaining a wider endorsement by the public.

Ground Floor Plan

Upper Section(s) Plan

North view (main entrance)

East View

The Arena

Aerial View with 'Hippodrome'