Condiment Junkie are proud to have completed a project for Royal Mail and Proximity London, designing SFX and brand music for an interactive timeline telling the story of Royal Mail’s 500 year heritage.
Proximity have created a technologically beautiful parallax view interface, through which you can discover the rich past of the Royal Mail and the historic milestones that it was there to witness.
Condiment Junkie created UI audio for the navigation, SFX that fills environment and reacts to the animations and objects in view, and a sonic identity in the form of a brand music track, which appears in several instances throughout the decades and centuries, in the style of the time. And we did the sound and music for the promo video below.
Bjork’s new Biophilia project has begun this week with the release of the Biophilia ‘mother app’, and the first of the musical releases, ‘Crystalline’.
We first came across rumblings of the Biophilia project at the end of 2010 whilst adding the final finessing touches to the sound design for Solar System for iPad. The app included an exclusive track from Bjork that played on startup, set to an animated fly through of the solar system. We designed all the haptic rumbles, atmosphere and the homepage theme to blend with Bjork’s track so there was a tonic consistency to the user experience.
That first piece of music, and it’s affiliation with both an iPad app and the theme of the universe from cosmic to microcosmic, was the beginning of a full blown exploration into technology, music, sound and nature. So has she achieved the next step along the iPad’s evolutionary path?
Well, first of all I think Bjork is one of the very few true geniuses in music today, and almost everything she does I adore. Musically this is no exception and I believe this may be her best album in the traditional sense since Vespertine. But as a sound designer with a special interest in the possibilities of audio in apps, I’m still not sure she has achieved something particularly ground breaking.
The homepage world of a line drawn nebular wherein every star contains a piece of music is beautiful. As you fly past each star the track assigned to it becomes audible and moves around you spatially, which is great though they could have been more intelligent with the holophonic (or binaural) sound design. Many sound based apps these days claim to have immersive 3D binaural audio (last year’s Inception app for example), and are usually just simply stereo. This is no exception.
Playing in the background of this nebular environment is an eerie vocal drone, which while being both beautiful and atmospheric, glitches at the end of its loop every 30 secs or so. I would’ve though they could have worked out how to make sound files loop without a glitch (we have). I know this is a minor fact, but I feel if you’re presenting something as breaking new ground in sound and technology, you kind of have to do it well.
Within the ‘Crystalline’ track there are a few visual representations of the music. There is a game reminiscent of the blowing-up-the-Deathstar bit from the original Star Wars arcade game. It’s kind of cool as an interactive video. But personally when I’m listening to something new, I want to concentrate on listening and not be occupied trying to work out how to play a game. The other visualisations take more of a musical tablature/score form. Neither manage to create a multi-sensorial experience, but rather two separate sensorial experiences.
Overall, again grand claims have been made about a new exploration of sound, and a new use of the iPad technology, that has made me prick my ears up and wonder if someone has done something really, truly interesting. So far (and there are still several tracks to be released that could suddenly blow this all out of the water), it hasn’t quite delivered. The interface needs refinement (though it works better on an iPad 2). The visualisations are nice but don’t add anything really. The sound (again, so far) is good but not brilliantly executed - I expect more. The music and the visual direction are beautiful and very Bjork, but this is a marketing tool with some interesting content, and nothing more. I’d still rather put the album on, lay back, and do my own explorations of space.
We've just completed the sound effects and UI audio design for Nursery Rhymes for iPad.
The book is a collaboration between app geniuses Us Two, and Atomic Antelope - the people behind the bestselling 'Alice'.
The animation and drawings are spectacular in this book, as is the UI and manipulation of the characters. A big shout to Neil McFarland and the team for their beautiful drawings.
The sound brings the stories to life and is designed purely to entertain and engage both children and parents alike. We didn't shy away from making the sounds quite visceral and real, rather than anything childlike. When you throw Jack & Jill down the hill, or chop the tails off the Three Blind Mice, you really feel it. In a couple of the stories we've engaged some of our haptic technique to add a tactile element to the experience.
An overwhelming amount of comments on the app store praise the sound effects. We are very proud. Cheers to everyone involved.
Solar system for iPad has won the award for best app at the first ever Future Book awards last night.
The judges, who included digital specialists from across publishing, praised the app for its combination of content and iPad wizardry.
Condiment Junkie designed the UI audio and created a haptic feedback feature in the amazing orrery, that makes the whole pad rumble as you zoom into the planets.
Condiment Junkie have just completed the interface audio and background sound design for ‘Solar System for iPad’, our first partnership with Touch Press, the people behind ‘The Elements’.
Working with the great team at Touch Press, we have designed sounds that completely enhance the product and the user experience, and are proud to have been involved in such a fantastic project.
Our favorite feature is a deep rumble in the 3D orrery, that makes the screen vibrate as you zoom into a planet, evoking the gravity and mass of the celestial bodies. This is a great example of using sound to communicate through other senses - it adds a tactile, physical level to the experience too.
The new title includes an haunting and majestic track specially adapted by Björk from her forthcoming Biophilia project, and for the moment is available only in Solar System for iPad.
We've recently finished the sound design for this iPad app's functionality.
Phaidon create high end coffee table books and have taken their 'Design Classics' edition, a collection of 1000 items over 300 years of design, and put it into a new iPad application.
The sound design had to represent the level of craftsmanship and quality of the product design contained within. Condiment Junkie looked to the world of precision watch making as a source for the sounds.
Adding sound to the functions and navigation of apps makes them more tactile and engaging, and can also help to communicate the design, content, and the brand identity in a more immediate way. People have also learnt, through film and tv, that these types of technology will sound a certain way in the future. The future is here, and it should sound how we expect it to.
How important is sound to mobile applications? Much more important than you might think, says Russ Jones.
Games developers think about it a lot, but the quality is more variable for non-gaming apps. In fact, many don’t have sound at all. That’s not something that London firm Condiment Junkie thinks is a good thing.
The company describes itself as a sonic art and sound design house, and works with brands to create ‘sonic identities’ across different platforms, including in products, TV and radio ads, websites and now mobile applications. If you’ve used Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute MealsiPhone app, that’s them – working with developer Zolmo.
“Sound is such a powerful way of forming memories and joining the senses,” creative director Russ Jones tells ME. “We all have our own experiences of sounds, and we’re pioneering ways to use audio to express brand identities and engage people.”
