The Arcade Fire band website

I found this website recently while I was at work with very little to do. I wanted to share it with you because I think it links into the discussion we were having in last Friday's class about bands creating album art potentially as a means to re-generate public interest in purchasing their CDs, at a time where so many of us download our music free from shareware programmes. Similarly, more and more bands are creating dynamic online identities on sites that provide more that just information about when their next gig is, or the release date of their new album, but include profiles the band members, photographs and blogs, as a means to invite fans into their personal world, or so the websites' suggest.

The site of which I have included the screenshot above, is accessed from a primary contents site for the band, which is http://www.arcadefire.com/flash.html
From here you can access auxiliary Arcade Fire sites, which include a fan site, the new album Neon Bible site, the store and a pre-ticket sales site. I mainly looked at the band site, but the other's are well worth a look too. Their online empire is pretty big.

One you have clicked on link entitled 'Band Site, Personal Secrets' you are navigated away to another screen within the network of sites, which is characterised by the image of what seems to be a digital version of a "glance wheel", which is sort of like a view-finder. Clicking on either the right or left hand that is situated under the wheel's window activates the the wheel to move around and present a new image which is associated with a member of the band. Below the image appears a different link each time the wheel is spun, that says something like 'Jeremy's Scrapbook' or Will's Journal' or 'Sarah's Cookbook'. I am very aware of how confusing this description is, so urge you to have a play around with it. The website is like a game I suppose, where we are invited to uncover hidden treasures buried within the site. There are links hidden woven into the interface that can be uncovered if you hover your mouse around the screen.

If you leave the screen idle for a while, the site is programmed to activate quirky little things to happen, like weird fire-birds to walk across the bottom of the screen, or heads to bob-up from under water within the window. You can then click on the heads to activate them, or there's one section of the wheel that has a connect-the-dots game within it. You can use the mouse to draw a line to connect actually draw on the screen and connect the dots.

You are invited to snoop around the site and uncover the band's secrets, as the title of the link suggests. This is further exemplified by the use of terms such as 'journal' or 'scrapbook'. Clicking on these links takes you to personal photos and blogs entries, where you are invited to learn about the lives of each band member, like viewing photos of Tim mowing the lawns. The way this is presented by the site suggests it was put up by the band members, but I suppose we'll never really know if that's real or not.



The website was co-designed by a Vincent Morriset, who is a Canadian designer who has worked on a variety of similar projects, more information on him can be found through links at the bottom oh the band's home page. Morriset's own page is pretty interesting, and has a similar application on it to the connect-the-dots game on the Arcade Fire website where you can "pick-up" a pencil and write messages over the screen.
On this website there are a heap of other projects that Vincent Morisset has worked on that are really interesting and dynamic too.

Every time I begin to end this blog, I think I will just go back to the site and have another look to see if there is anything else I'd like to include, and uncover a handful of other links that I think are awesome and want to discuss, such is the wealth of interesting bits and pieces on the Arcade Fire and associated sites. The online identity that the band has created for themselves, or had created on their behalf by Morriset is complex, vast, quirky and interactive. Every part of the site is crafted to engage the viewer in making a connection with the band and to fulfill a need for a fan to know everything there is to know about it.

Finally, the best part of the website and the last thing I want to share is this interactive video work. Click on this image to the right to check it out, it's great.