Jordi Romkema

Back home again! We’ve had an absolutely wonderful vacation in Florida but now we’re back home again. Obviously with lots of pictures! I’ve uploaded them all to my Flickr photostream this weekend. We went to Cocoa Beach, Miami Beach, Kennedy Space Center, Celebration, Universal Studios, Universal’s Islands of Adventure and of course Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, Animal Kingdom & Typhoon Lagoon.

It surely was magical and I can’t wait to go back some day! I wouldn’t mind living in Celebration either!

On another note, I also saw that I ‘forgot’ to upload photos from our trip to California/Nevada/Wyoming/Utah last year. So I also did that this weekend. Well I didn’t forget, I just never had the time to do it… and can you blame me? I made around 2000 photos!

In just a few hours I and my girlfriend will be sitting uncomfortably, eating with plastic forks and knives, drinking from paper cups in an overcrowded airplane. Anyway, what I meant to say was: We’re going to Florida! Finally the time has come to sit back and relax on the sunny beaches of Miami and to stroll around the theme parks in Orlando. We will arrive in Orlando where we will take a short drive the next day to the eastern coastline. There we will stay in Cocoa Beach and will drive further south to Miami Beach. After a few more days we will return to Orlando to spend the rest of our vacation there in Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, etc.

Let’s hope the weather plays along, right now the outlook is scattered thunderstorms throughout our vacation. Hmmm… Oh well!

So in the meantime enjoy some of the silence on my website as I won’t be blogging until I return. I promise to bring back some pretty pictures! See you in two weeks!

Recently TMF launched a new website called Kijk Dit Nou! Roughly translated it means Watch This! It’s a user generated content platform for television channel TMF. However it’s not like YouTube or Vimeo where you can only upload videos but you can also record movies with your webcam and upload audio and photo’s.

The website also plays a supporting role for the television show TMF Reaction . With Kijk Dit Nou! the show becomes more interactive as viewers are encouraged by the presenters to upload their funniest content to be shown on television. Furthermore advertisers can use the new UGC platform for their own campaigns. The webcam recording ability is especially popular among advertisers.

Kijk Dit Nou! - Homepage

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It was an exciting day yesterday at MTV Networks. Why? That day Nickelodeon finally released a new game and website for television show Het Huis Anubis (Anubis House). For those that don’t know, Het Huis Anubis is a teenage soap about a group of teenagers that live together in a boarding house during their secondary school education. Each with their own story, their own history and their own way of moving on to maturity. The show is full of mystery as the house a past, a secret history. The show started its fifth season on Monday and it’s extremely popular with kids in The Netherlands and Belgium in the age 8 through 13.

The new game is already the fifth Anubis game that has been released and was completely revised compared to earlier editions. The game, created by MediaMonks for Nickelodeon, is so successful that even without promotion on television it has attracted 5000 kids playing the game simultaneously the first day. Het Huis Anubis has an active fan base and the number of kids playing grows on a daily basis. The game is sponsored by the Dutch bank Rabobank. In-game the kids can collect coins and put them on their in-game bank account. This way kids learn how to earn and spend coins as they can buy collectibles in the Anubis shop. They also earn interest based on their amount.

Het Huis Anubis Game

Game Clubhouse

The website has also been revamped in order to support the release of the new game and the premiere of the new season. I was responsible for the interaction and visual design and co-worker Fabian Scheepers has put the site together technically while Rens van de Lee worked on the CSS.

Het Huis Anubis Website

For a more in-depth analysis in Dutch of Het Huis Anubis, the new site and the new game by Nickelodeon’s Engagement Manager Kids Eline Kwantes you can visit DutchCowgirls.nl.

It’s been a busy month with the launch of the TMF Video Player and then immediately after I was invited by Adobe to join the Adobe AIR Summer Camp in Dinant, Belgium. Three days of AIR programming, training and the occasional paintball sessions. I sure had a lot of fun there and it was great to meet other people interested in creating wonderful AIR applications.

Anyway, this weekend we at MTV Networks went on a three day team building session in Marrakech, Marrocco. We stayed at Club Med La Palmeraie, a little outside of this beautiful city. I took a lot of photos and I’ve uploaded some of them on Flickr. I specifically say ‘some of them’ because I do have more photos but can’t share them. It’s an MTV party after all and what happens in Marrakech stays in Marrakech Click here for the photos.

Today the first public beta of the TMF Video Player was launched. The TMF Video Player is an interactive desktop application made with Adobe AIR. With this application you can watch the latest music videos, watch your own playlist, read the latest gossip and showbiz news and watch previously aired episodes of television programs created by the Dutch television channel TMF.

The application will also notify you when there’s a new music video, a new blog post by one of the TMF presenters or a new news article at the TMF website.

The TMF Video Player was designed and developed by me but wouldn't be possible without the help of Bert Hagendoorn, Serge Jespers and Klaasjan Tukker from Adobe Benelux. I would like to thank them for their wonderful support they have given in the development process. They have supplied me with lots of information on how to get the best performance out of this little application and how to use the Adobe AIR framework.

The TMF Video Player was made entirely in Actionscript 3.0 with Adobe Flex. The application retrieves Flash video streams served through a Flash Media Server.

You can download the TMF Video Player here.

On September 1st Comedy Central will launch a new digital television channel in The Netherlands called Comedy Central Family. The channel will air a broad selection of local successful productions and international hit series for the whole family 24 hours a day.

Comedy Central Family differs in a lot of ways compared to its bigger brother Comedy Central: It has a different target audience, more family oriented and the design is also more colorful and more playful.

http://www.vimeo.com/1558848

Moodtape Comedy Central Family

To support the launch for this new television channel a small website was created to supply viewers with information regarding the television shows and a TV guide. The site has the same structure as the Comedy Central website launched a few weeks ago yet looks completely different as you can see below.

Comedy Central Family - Homepage

Today, the website for Comedy Central in The Netherlands has been completely renewed as part of an extensive online and on air rebranding campaign. The change in the look-and-feel of the television channel (which will happen today at 8pm) will give the Comedy Central a more personal and fresher appearance.

A change on air also means a change online which was the main reason why the site was updated and refreshed. The new website differs in many ways with its processor launched in 2007: There’s now much more information and more visual elements from each television show. The television guide contains much more information and now you are also able to print your own television guide so you can sit back and relax on your own couch without having to turn the computer on to check what’s on Comedy Central.

The channel is home to proven success shows such as Californication, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Frasier, Reno 911!, Scrubs and much more.

Below you can see a screenshot of the new website but obviously it would be best to visit it yourself! In other news, Comedy Central will launch a new television channel next month called Comedy Central Family which will also get its own website. But more information on that as soon as it happens...

Comedy Central - Homepage

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As you might have noticed already I am a fan of bright colors used in web design. Today I stumbled upon Rox, a website for a music & art festival in the UK. Although the primary colors are shades of grey and black (again, a big fan) the design comes to life thanks to the use of bright green, blue and green.

The hand drawn art is what makes the Rox site standout though. I love the elements design by hand, a trend I see more and more each day. I don’t mind the trend as long as it’s used moderately and not for primary controls or navigation.

If anyone else knows some good examples of websites using hand drawn elements, drop them in the comments below.

McJunior Club is an interactive playground for kids containing lots of games, fun facts, movies and promotional contests. The site has been created for McDonald’s together with Nickelodeon. The primary goal of the website is to offer the kids a form of entertainment, to stimulate the kids to play games and do sports.

A new logo was specifically designed by me to be used on the website and on promotional items such as posters and in-restaurant placemats. The site was also designed by me and features several different sections each with a specific layout: Movies, games, Happy Meal, birthdays and Ronald McDonald. Every month the site’s look and feel is updated to match the current Happy Meal theme (as you can see in the screenshot the current theme is promoting healthy food options such as water, carrots and apples. Other times the theme is around an upcoming movie, a big event such as the Olympics, a television character and so on… The site is very popular, especially the flash games.

McJunior Club - Homepage

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