“The site is simple and focused with interesting transitions that draw you deeper into the experience. Products are showcased and used as design elements to establish a sense of environment and tell the story of the brand.” —juror Bryan Finke

“This isn’t your average product site... interesting visuals and subtle background music make it memorable.” —juror Dan Mavromatis

Overview: A stitch metaphor unravels deeper levels of content on this Web site with a modern feel that further expresses Ms. Goodman’s design philosophy that “all is one.” Combining poetry, art and superb craft, visitors are taken into her calm and creative world of luxury products. About the only thing you can’t do, is try on the shoes.

• 6 months, 3 people

Comments by Derek Noonan and BJ Cunningham:
“The magical look and feel and fairytale experience of this site came about as a result of the following exchange of e-mails between Derek Noonan of Diet Strychnine Corp. and BJ Cunningham of Georgina Goodman at the outset of the project in May 2003:

“‘To get started conceptually, do me a favor—get drunk, smoke a joint or do whatever you do to bring out the real creative creature in yourself—and write down a mood board of what you want georginagoodman.com to feel like aesthetically. Send that on to me, and then give Raz and me a week to create this fairytale universe for you. Cheers. //derek’

“‘OK D, I’ve taken your advice, I’m good and wasted and I’m thinking of this as a mood board. Don’t quote me or take it too literally, but it just may help trigger something: Minimal, clean, elegant, open, organic, pure, refined, simple, intuitive, streamlined, sculptural, mercury, alchemy, magic, chemistry, beauty, desire. Depth over width. Involvement over awareness. Form is function. The Emerald Tablet. Pools of water light reflecting sun flared skin. Leather on leather on wood on earth. Universal language. One heart. Rhythm and process. Movement, sway, alive. Water rounded pebbles, seashells smoothed through shifting sands. The ripple of the desert seen from thirty-thousand-feet. Clouds against a purple sky. Gentle breeze in sun-browned hair. Tide mark. Natural script handwriting on a window pane. Rudyard Kipling’s If. Messages from the gods. One Hundred Years of Solitude meets Necromancer. Pearl secrets. Freedom, creativity, being, breathe. Bed time. —bj’

“The point of the exchange was to communicate, between ourselves, our emotional intent, to form a pool of ‘feelings’ from which the site could be created. And it worked. Prior to these e-mails, the proposal looked a lot like it would have for a banking site (which we definitely knew we didn’t want) with all of the usual maps and charts showing the content that we wanted and needed. We had already described what we wanted our virtual world to hold and show, but we didn’t want an online brochure.

“The end result isn’t just about written or visual information, it’s about the ‘whole’ of it working ‘as one.’ The final expression is a direct result of that freefall of consciousness in written word, which was then interpreted beautifully. It just goes to prove that in life and in love—and most especially in design briefs—it isn’t about taking control, it is about having command. The tightest grip is an open hand.”