• WHAT: A website for Japan’s most avant-garde school of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement.

• HOW: The website greets the user with a dynamically created, dynamically colored flower.

• WHY: The client wanted something beautiful and unusual, and not too literal.

• WHO: For anyone curious about Sogetsu’s unique approach to Ikebana.

Development

Sogetsu.or.jp is the first site I designed as a creative director. The Sogetsu Foundation is the most avant-garde school of Ikebana in Japan (the Japanese art of flower arrangement). The client was intentionally vague on the brief, saying they wanted an imaginative design that was only dimly related to ikebana. "Don't be to be too literal!" they said.

To echo the creative spirit of Sogetsu, I programmed Flash (this was 2002, remember) to dynamically create an abstracted "flower" out of geometric petals. Whenever a user comes to their homepage, they are greeted with a flower of unique shape and color. Once a user moves towards the flower, the saturation dims to not distract from the content. The six menu items are attached to the tips of the petals, and when a user clicks one, the petal expands to form a polygon of sub-navigation. See for yourself.