NOW IN THE NEWS

THE MAKING OF MCCSMCRD.COM

..| Released: 11.25.08

..| Updated: 03.21.09

..| Transmission broadcast from: MCRD San Diego

WHEN WHERE AND WHAT TIME

..| Go live date 02.08.08

..| MCRD San Diego

..| 8:00 AM

RESTRICTIONS

..| None. Get inspired

MAJOR INSPIRATION

..| Eric Jordan [ Graphics + Brushes]

..| Shane Meilke [ Graphics ]

..| Web Agent 007 [ Graphics ]

..| Neverrain [ Music ]

..| Properly Chilled[ Music ]

..| Deviant Art [ Graphics ]

..| Z-Design [ Brushes ]

..| Shady Medusa [ Brushes ]

..| Mike Ortiz [ Video ]

THE BEAUTY PROCESS

Hi. My names Jim. I was the designer of the site. I say was because I've now moved on. I started the design process [ Graphics ] on 12.01.07. The site went live on 02.08.08. I wanted to share with you how I got inspired to build it.

To set the stage, you should know I built it with young Marines in mind, and all those who like sci-fi fantasy. This is actually the second generation of the "MAYA Mark" designs. As you know there was already a MAYA Mark 1 site. I hated it. So, I got the o.k. to design another. I kept searching and searching for the type of feeling I wanted to invoke. Then one day I was watching some young Marines playing Halo 3, a new release at the time, and it hit me! Why not design a site with a deep dark futuristic grunge feel. Make it look like the gateway to MCRD in the future. Make it look like no other military site in the world.

STEP 1

Imbue the site with some soul, some sentience. I firmly believe all the best sites have this. There's personage in them. They're built on nebulous ideas and raw enthusiasm, with the central aim of making something frak'n cool.

STEP 2

Give the site a name. The real name for the site isn't MCCSMCRD.COM it's MAYA [ Most Advanced Yet Accesible ] MARK2. The MAYA part comes from Raymond Loewy. It's a heuristic coined by him that explains: "The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm." To put it another way, it's been written that "What Loewy is saying is that a local maximum exists for creative work: the behaviour, understanding and mental models of our userbase anchor us and cause work that’s too far removed to fail". This site isn't just a collection of pretty images and cleverly crafted words. Everything in it has meaning. Everything has purpose. Some of it subliminal. All of it familiar, at least to a Marine.

STEP 3

Now that the site had spirit and a name, all I had to do was piece together the elements. It was sort of like making my own Frankenstein. After watching Halo 3, and checking out some other fantasy based games, I knew I didn't want to use the typical military Web site colors; red, white and blue. or tan and olive.

I wanted to push the envelope and do something quite unique and unexpected. But at the same time give my audience reference points such as familiar shapes, conventions and symbols. Which help give everything a layer of believability. The result is something unlike any other military site in the world. It's actually a big deal in military circles. The reason I've been able to get away from the norm is because I have progressive people backing me up. Marines are some of the most creative people you'll ever meet.

When I get asked where I got my influence and aspirations for the site. I tell people I get it from all over. Movies, books, television, and artists way more talented than myself. Eric, Shane and Web Agent 007 are the artists who inspired me the most. They definitely had the greatest influence on designs.

The movies that moved me, during design, were Alien, Blade Runner, Dark City, Ultraviolet, The Island, Hitman, Resident Evil, Cashern, Chronicles of Riddick, Equillibrium, Doom, Star Wars, i Robot, and Transformers among others. You get the picture.

The books I checked out dealt with fantasy art and composition. I studied the "Golden Rectangle" a lot. You see, I'm not a natural born artist, but I do have an eye for talent. So what I have to do is study that talent until I'm blue in the face. Then I get books and learn how to duplicate it. This is how I learn. From example.

THE MAIN GRAPHICS

The main graphic, is of course, the cargo doors. They're supposed to look like what a Marine might encounter as he enters MCRD, after a deep space mission. The cargo doors, on each side, are the side of the cargo ship "Sulaco" from the movie Alien. The battalion logos on the doors represent the battalions aboard MCRD. The mast head at the top is made up of several unique pieces.

1. The Eagle, Globe and Anchor background is the eyeball from the robot, Sunny, in the movie i Robot.

2. The small white words are a prayer spoken by President, John Adams. In part it reads, "I pray Heaven bestow the best of blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it." I always liked that part of the prayer and thought it fitting for a Web site. MCCS's home on the internet.

3. On the far right corner of the masthead is a pair of sunglasses, with a Marine on a walkie-talkie. The glasses just seemed so California I had to use them. After all, we are considered the Beverly Hills of military bases. The background behind all this is a picture from an archeological site named, Ancoma.

4. In the small detail work you'll military weapons. An homage to the Marines. Look for K-Bar knives, used in the news section. Machine gun barrels, and razor blades are found as a thin grey bar above and below the main navigation. It's amazing how many things you can make from a Mach 3 razor. A 9MM gun barrel makes up the footer.

5. The red piping on the mast comes from the Alien vs. Predator [ Requiem ] site.

6. The rollovers on the navigation were inspired by the 2Advanced site.

7. The brackets that hold any pictures that appear, on individual pages, were inspired by Tiberium Core.

WIDGETS

Recently I've begun experimenting with widgets. Gotta love them. They're my new pet project.

My recent RSS widget science project has paid off. It's now fully operational and seamlessly integrated into the site. The best part about it is that it's friendly for mobile phones.

Look for it in the news section. The feed has two options: 1] You can share it as a widget or 2] you can just subscribe to the feed. Mobile users and bookmarkers will subscribe. Facebookers, MySpacers and bloggers will widgetize.

UPLOAD YOUR FAVORITE PICS + VIDEO

I've found Drop.io to be an excellent way for people to add their own favorite MCCS event photos to the site.

INFORMATION

Jim

MCCS MCRD San Diego

P   619.725.6417

E   Finook@yahoo.com