Second story: Telling tales

Graphis, Sep/Oct 2001 by Coupland, Ken

An innovative Web studio that specializes in "elevating the art of storytelling" harnesses breaking technology to illuminate the mysteries of an ancient ritual. By Ken Coupland Down a steep flight of stairs that leads to a claustrophobic passageway, you enter an Egyptian tomb, finding your way around by a flashlight's gleam to the ambient music of spooky reed instruments and ethereal temple bells. Welcome to Unwrapped. The Mysterious World of Mummies, an inspired meditation on a gloomy subject tucked away on Discovery Channel's Web site. Combining text, music, animation, video and audio commentary, Unwrapped plunges you into a cinematic experience unlike any other you'll encounter on the Web. Only a click away from the news-stocks-sports-and-weather that defines most Internet activity, you've entered an immersive world of strange sights and sounds-with nary a shopping cart in sight.

Unusual as it is, Unwrapped and creations like it are all in a day's work for the team at Second Story Interactive Studios. A David among Goliaths in the volatile Web development industry, Second Story earns its bread-and-butter from the kinds of projects most Web design studios-regardless of size-an only dream of A typical Second Story project wraps formidable technological complexity and swift embrace of the latest Web software in a package distinguished by eye-pleasing graphics, evocative type treatments, and astute information architecture and design. "We're doing the projects that big agencies lust after," co-founder and creative director Brad Johnson says, "because, frankly, they're more fun."

In operation under various guises since 1994, Second Story has a miniscule staff of 10 and location-Portland, Oregon-that's not exactly on the beaten multimedia path. Working from spacious new quarters in a renovated factory in one of the city's historic industrial neighborhoods, Second Story doesn't appear to be suffering from its lack of proximity to new-media centers like San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch or New York City's Silicon Alley. With more than 40 original interactive projects already under its belt, the studio has accumulated a dizzying number of industry awards in every major interactive design competition, and its client list includes the country's most prestigious museums, broadcasters, and corporations.

In a medium where dot-com hysteria has given way to stock market meltdown, and big-time interactive agencies are clambering to stay afloat, Johnson and his team quietly flout the conventional wisdom that there's no market for creative content on the Web. "The thing that's different about us is that we do our own research, editing, and writing, and most agencies don't do any of that," the 37-year-old Johnson notes. "They're strictly about design and usability, not content. So we're getting a lot of interest from sponsors and partners that can't get that kind of thing anywhere else."

Its design and functionality inspired by archeological metaphors and the spirit of exploration, the lush and engaging packaging for Unwrapped represents the proverbial tip of the iceberg; its disarming visual appeal masks a formidable technical complexity. Second Story is currently touring a presentation to rapt audiences at Web developer conferences that covers every aspect of Unwrapped's creation, from HTML standards to Flash naming conventions and libraries of readable script, positioning and mission documents, scheduling and task management. The presentation, based on the intranet "bible" for the project, reveals what a creative tightrope the studio walks between increasingly arcane programming demands and the task of maintaining high esthetic aspirations. Clearly, such projects involve a staggering degree of internal development that would tax the resources of the largest agencies, with their top-heavy allocations of resources to marketing and the like.

Johnson, who calls Web design his "first real job," has no formal design training, although the studio's distinctive "painterly" palette no doubt has a lot to do with his past career as a color-field abstractionist. Cofounder (and life partner) Julie Beeler, on the other hand, has a background in graphic design that's probably just as far from what's she's doing now. "I work on initial concepts involving the interactivity and structure with Brad and the rest of the team, as well as thinking of various visual metaphors when we're putting together the prototype of the site and how you're going to experience it," Beeler allows. She also finds herself assuming an authoring role. "I'm responsible for the working on the content, doing the research and compiling all the different pieces of art and text we'll need."

Unwrapped, as well, signals an emerging trend for the pint-sized studio-towards original content development. Johnson, with Beeler, heads up a team that includes three other designers, a programmer, producer, researcher, combination production artist and office manager, and-significantly, a brand-new business manager. "We're trying to position Second Story where it's more of a studio that creates all these features, rather than a design shop that just gives a visual treatment to someone else's property," he says.