Kia ora, my name is Andy Biggs and I'm an interacitve designer from New Zealand. At present I'm based in Annecy, France, working as a freelance designer and developer.

When I'm not working you can find me in the Aravis mountains skiing. I'm pretty friendly so drop me an email if you want to chat or catch up for a beer and raclette.

+ Contact Me    + Download CV

Blog

La neige est venue

Je regarde le forecast du neige. Ce fin de semaine, il y a 37cm de la neige a La Clusaz. La Clusaz est ma préféré estation du ski proche a Annecy. Mes amis, Manuel et Joana, visite a Annecy la week-end dernier. Ce photo est de les canals dans Annecy. les canals sont tres calme. C'est la raison de le parfait reflection dans le photo.

The snow is coming

I looked at the snow forecast. This weekend there is 37 cm of snow at La Clusaz. La Clusaz is my favourite ski field near Annecy. My friends, Manuel and Joana, visited Annecy last weekend. This photo is of the canals in Annecy. The canals are very calm. This is the reason why the reflection is so perfect.

posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008
0 comments

Fromage, Fromage, Fromage

J'habite a Haute Savoie en France. C'est region est celebre pour son fromage. Le traditionalles cuisine en la region est raclette, tartiflette et fondue. Tous le recette avec fromage. Les fromages en la region sont tres bonne. J'aime le fromage, Reblochon.

Cheese, Cheese, Cheese

I live in the Haute Savoie region of France. The region is famous for its cheese. The traditional dishes in the region are raclette, tartiflette and fondue. All the recipes use cheese. The cheeses in the region are very good. I love the cheese, Reblochon.

posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008
0 comments

J'amie Annecy

Bonjour,

C'est mon premiere post en Francias. Sarah et moi vivons a Annecy deux semaines maintanent. Je ski quatre station du ski. Ici le neige est bonne et le personnes est amical. Je pense que le apres trois mois sera parfait. J'ai les photos sur flickr.

Au revoir d'Annecy

Hello,

This is my first post in French. Sarah and I have been living in Annecy for two weeks now. I have skied four differen't ski fields. The snow is great here and the people are friendly. I think that the next three months will be perfect. I have photos on flickr.

Laters from Annecy.

posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008
0 comments

Design Experience

R/GA - 2006 › 2008

I worked for 1.5 years as a Senior Flash Developer for R/GA in their new London based office. I loved working with one of the best web development companies in the world and couldn't ask for a better team to work with.

Blast Radius - 2005 › 2006

For 1 year I worked at Blast Radius in Vancouver, Canada. I was working as a Flash developer and information architect. Working with a bigger Flash development team allowed me to focus on and hone my Flash development skills.

Shift - 2003 › 2005

For nearly 2 years I worked at Shift as a web designer. While at the company I was heavily involved in creating visually rich websites using Flash and HTML. Shift exposed me to many aspects of web design, from information architecture and design through to production and programming.

Awards   Qualifications

New Zealand.com Travel Site
Winner - Tourism
Webby Awards 2006

Electronic Arts - Battlefield 2
Winner - Technical Excellence
Flash In The Can Awards 2006

New Zealand.com Travel Site
Winner - Tourism
Webby Awards 2005

New Zealand.com - Travel Planner
Winner - Information Reference
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2005

Destination Northland
Winner - Integrated marketing campaign
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2005

Haka Feature - Tourism New Zealand
Winner - Integrated marketing campaign
Winner - Overall craft award
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2004

Interactive Map of New Zealand - Tourism New Zealand
Winner - Information Reference
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2004

Snow Globe - Xmas 2003 - Shift
Finalist - Intergrated Marketing Campaign
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2004

Nicholas Blanchet - 2004 Summer Collection
Winner - Intergrated Marketing Campaign
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2003

Nutrio - Nutrition Organiser
Finalist - Innovation
TUANZ Interactive Awards 2003

Bachelor of Design (Honors)
Dec 2002
Massey University School of Design
Wellington, New Zealand.

A Bursary (Scholarship)
1994 - 1998
Burnside High School,
Christchurch, New Zealand.

Graduating Subjects:

Design

Graphics

Sculpture

Pyhsics

Maths Calc

Skill Set

I have over 5 years experience in the following applications

- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe AfterEffects
- Adobe Audition
- Macromedia Dreamweaver
- Macromedia Flash
- Macromedia Fireworks
- Macromedia Freehand
- Quark Express

I have over 5 years professional experience in the following programming languages:

- ActionScript 1 & 2 (Advanced)
- HTML/xHTML (Advanced)
- CSS (Advanced)
- XML (Advanced)
- JavaScript (Intermediate)
- Lingo (Intermediate)
- PHP (Basic)
- MySql (Basic)

I have considerable experience in the following methodologies:

- Information Architecture
- User Interface Design
- Flash/HTML Development
- User Testing
- Branding Development
- Creative Concept Development

Nokia Nseries.com Flash

Nokia Nseries is a website for the Nseries range of Nokia devices. I worked on the flash development for the current version of the site with the R/GA technology team. This was a large project with localisation into several languages.
+ Launch Site

Nokia The Urbanista Diaries Flash

The Urbanista Diaries was a campaign site to launch the new Nokia N82. The site demonstrates the versatility of the device with bloggers posting text and photos onto a map of the world on the fly. We acheived this by integrating the bloggers geo coded content (via sportstracker) with google maps to create a rich online experience. I was involved in the flash development of the initial site. The site recieved a write up in the New York Times.
+ Launch Site

Personal countryslide.com Design,Flash,PHP,MySQL

A personal project to create a beautiful slideshow site that displays the natural and cultural beauty of countries through images. All photos are taken by the public on flickr. Experience our world through your imagery.
+ Launch Site

Nokia N95 Mashup Tool Flash, Media Server

"What's in your pocket" was the tagline for the highly successful N95 global campaign which allowed users to submit their own video clips showing what they kept in their pockets. With more than 1,000 submitted videos, users were then invited to create their own version of the popular N95 TV Commercial, by using their own clips or parts of the original commercial. Besides of the video Cutting Room, the tool incorporated different options for soundtrack, voice-over and title sequence.

Nokia Share what you see Flash

Share what you see was a central online experience for the global launch of Nokia N73. For this purpose Nokia invited a group of renowned artists to document segments of their lives using the N73. The online environment included different artists' worlds, many created in 3D, where one could not only see their artwork but also interact with different media created with the N73.

Christian Randall Conservation Architect Flash, XML

Christian Randall is a respected conservation architect here in England. Sam Dallyn and I teamed up to produce a new site for him that really showed off his architectural work. Our aim was to create a very minimal site leaving his work to speak for itself.
+ Launch Site

Personal Digital Doodle Creative, Design, Flash, Php

There is a theme each week and users draw doodles based on the theme. Drawing a doodle using the site is really easy so many people have been contributing. Its also cool to look through the crazy doodles others have made.
Digital Doodle is an idea I came up with while bored in a meeting at work. I noticed both myself and the designer in the meeting were doodling away as it took place. Which made me think wouldn't it be cool to be able to doodle online.

+ Launch Site

Personal Voyage Creative, Flash

I have been a flash developer for a while and i had never explored with 3D so I read Robert Penners very good chapter on 3D flash then decided to give 3D a go. Voyage is the result of that experiment. Voyage is a RSS Feed agregator that sorts the feeds based on date of each item posted. The user then scrolls through their feeds in 3d using the mouse wheel.

+ Launch Site

Personal Ahua Creative, Design, Flash

Ahua is a gallery of well designed websites from my home country New Zealand. The list is pretty small at the moment but I plan to add many more over this year. Submission is currently removed as I had a nasty spam attack, it will be back up soon.

+ Launch Site

DIRECTV DIRECTV Website Flash

This is the official website for DIRECTV one of America's leading television providers. The new website is being released in stages and currently the new homepage is live. The aim with the new site is to make it a more engaging experience for both potential customers, and actual customers. My involvement in this project was as the Flash developer for the main Flash piece in the centre of the homepage. This module is built to accept numerous pieces of promotional content. Each piece of promotional content can be either a still image, Flash movie or streaming video. The module has been developed with object orientated programming and communicates with the server using Flash Remoting and Communication Server.

+ Launch Site

Nintendo of America Nintendo Power Magazine v2.0 Flash

This is the promotional site for the Nintendo Power magazine. It contains a full archive of all the magazines released and allows users to browse through the magazines to get a feel for the content of each issue. My involvement in the project was as the Flash developer and I was also responsible for motion design within the site. The site is integrated with a content management system allowing all content on the site to be dynamic using XML to communicate with the front end Flash. The code on the site is ActionScript 2.0, it is Object Orientated and uses the MVC design pattern extensively.

Electronic Arts Battlefield 2 M.C. - Player Profile Flash

This module is part of the Battlefield 2 Modern Combat website. It displays full statistical information about a player's activity within the game. In game stats are stored on EA servers then displayed in this module when the user wants to see their statistics online. I was the lead Flash developer and motion designer on this project. Again code in this module is ActionScript 2.0, it is Object Orientated and uses the MVC design pattern extensively.

+ Launch Site

Electronic Arts Need For Speed Most Wanted Flash

This is the official site of the Need For Speed Most Wanted Computer game. The site uses large amounts of Flash video and audio. I was a Flash developer and motion designer on the project. The main area I developed was the Flash navigation for the site on the left. The site is dynamic and controlled through Electronic Art's content management system.

+ Launch Site

Electronic Arts Madden 06 - Player Profile Flash

This module is part of the Madden 06 website. It displays full statistical information about a player's activity within the game. In game stats are stored on EA servers then displayed in this module when the user wants to see their statistics online. I was the lead Flash developer and motion designer on this project.

+ Launch Site

Tourism New Zealand Interactive Map of New Zealand Design, Flash, XML

The interactive map is a Flash based map of New Zealand for www.newzealand.com (the official tourism site of New Zealand). The map offers many features including real time weather, a driving route calculator and zooming view port. The map uses Flash and XML to plot all the information on it dynamically from a database. Design and Flash production by myself, server side coding by Matt. The interactive map won a TUANZ interactive award.

+ Launch Site

Destination Northland Website Design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash

The Destination Northland website is the official travel website for the Northland region of New Zealand. The aim in the design of this site was to really promote the increadible natural beauty of the region. I was the main information archictect, designer and Flash / HTML programmer on this project. The backend programming was done by Tom. The site won a TUANZ interactive award.

+ Launch Site

Nicholas Blancet 2004 Summer Collection Flash

This promotional website for New Zealand fashion designer Nicholas Blanchet was based around the theme of his summer collection "The Beach". A panoramic scene with parallax of Muruwai beach provided an interface where users clicked on the models to view the garments. Designed and coded by Che and myself, this site won a TUANZ Iinteractive Award.

Tourism New Zealand Haka Feature Flash

The Haka feature was a module for www.newzealand.com. It was designed to educate people about Maori culture in New Zealand. It features video, sound and a game. The module won several awards and was shown to the United Nations as an example of cultural awareness on the web. Graphic design by Che, interface and flash design by myself.

+ Launch Site

Sky City Convention Centre Room Configurator Design, Flash, XML

The Room Configurator is a rich internet application designed to make it easier for people to book rooms for functions in the convention centre. The site has a set of dynamic floor plans and a room search feature to make it easier for users to visualise their future functions. Design and front end flash production by me, server side coding and back-end flash coding by Pete.

+ Launch Site

Coffee Supreme Cafe locator & HTML Site Design, Flash, XML, HTML

While I was working at Boy Girl Boy I got the pleasure of working on the Coffee Supreme website. I designed the Cafe Locator, a flash based website that allowed you to find the closest cafe where you could get "supreme beans". I also designed the HTML site for users who don't have flash. The Cafe Locator uses a novel interface that creates a typographic map of New Zealand out of text.

+ Launch Site

New Zealand - Winter 08 - 51 Photos
Chamonix - 27 Photos
France - 80 Photos
Edinburgh - 19 Photos
Norway - 76 Photos
Green Man Festival 2007 - 25 Photos
Little People - 6 Photos
Malta - 32 Photos
Paris - 31 Photos
Randoms - 12 Photos
White Water Week - 32 Photos
London Life - 48 Photos
Mountain Biking in the UK - 12 Photos
The Sultan's Elephant - 14 Photos
Backcountry in British Columbia - 19 Photos
Tofino - 15 Photos
Canadian Winter - 30 Photos
BC Summer - 31 Photos
South America - 135 Photos
New Zealand - 18 Photos