Responses by Ben Muckensturm, creative director, American Haiku.

Background: The purpose of the site was to offer a first glimpse of who we are as an agency and create a central place to showcase our work for prospective clients and potential production partners as well as attract new talent. We wanted to demonstrate  the approach we take to handling our own brand to others that might potentially give us the mandate to handle their brands.

Design core: We leaned on interactivity by making this a unique, memorable experience for the viewer. To do so, we tapped into nostalgia, leaning on camera and gaming functionalities we’re all familiar with but may have slipped slightly from the collective memory. People visiting for the first time might be slightly surprised and feel like there’s almost a learning curve to navigate the website, but a minute in, things become naturally intuitive because we still remember how these tools functioned.

It’s a very different feeling from more “contemporary” web layouts that have become very universal but are made in such a frictionless way with nearly identical layouts and buttons. It’s so familiar that we don’t remember much of the experience and aren’t encouraged to explore more on our own. For our site, we leaned into the limitations of more analog times and encouraged the viewer to spend more time, even rewarding them with some secret “level achievements” that unlock as they explore more.

Favorite details: The unconventional layout and web experience that’s truly a reflection of how we work and operate. Every touchpoint should excite you, and hopefully, you have some fun along the way.

Navigation structure: We intentionally restricted our navigation to what we’d find on an old camera or gaming console, limiting the ability to preview and relying on viewers’ curiosity to dig and find things for themselves. The navigation possibilities were endless, so we had to intentionally pare back to the most essential and let go of ideas that, although cool, could complicate the experience and work against us.

Special navigational features: A lot of our work revolves around scripts that, most times, people never get to read, especially once the final product is out. We decided to show a peek inside our process by adding script overlays on our films that follow along each video. Similarly, we’ve added a feature enabling people to switch between various aspect ratios from 9:16 to 16:9 to 4:3, showing how the work can adapt based on how our audience usually consumes media.