Almost everyone dreamed of being intrepid explorers while we are kids, while we may not be able to live that dream we can still be explorers in some sense. Enter Heart of the Arctic, an amazing exploration site in this week’s edition of Awesome Web Design of the Week.
To commemorate the centennial anniversary of the first Canadian Arctic Expedition the Royal Canadian Mint along with Cossette Montreal along with a body of agencies collaborated to create the Heart of the Arctic. This stunning 72,000px wide interactive HTML5 site invites both parents and children to follow the steps of the amazing voyage of the 1913 HMCS Karluk crew.
The website opens up with a stunning animation teasing the users on the journey that they are about face. The animation explains the things that are happening in the Arctic such as the balance between night and day is broken, giants and majestic creatures. The users are then invited to follow the footsteps of the first explorers and restore the unrest that is happening in the Arctic.
Here’s a trailer video for Heart of the Arctic produced by Jam3:
Royal Canadian Mint: Heart of the Arctic from Jam3 on Vimeo.
After the animation, users are then asked to log in for an account. After that the users are then taken to a short tutorial wherein they are taught on the different functions of the site. Jam3, a Toronto based digital design studio built the dynamic parallax experience that will challenge the users to look and collect over 50 elements. Users then gain badges as well as coins that is used to restore the balance of the Arctic.
Tendrill another Canadian creative agency has provided the rich atmosphere and animation to recreate the vast and glorious tundra filled with plants and animals that was encountered by the 1913 explorers.
Kids and parents alike are sure to enjoy Heart of the Arctic’s awesome web design, not to mention a very interactive and fun environment. Not only the site is gorgeous and fun it is also very educational and would be a good website to bookmark most specially for the young ones who dreams of being an explorer in the future.