Animation and interactive entertainment company Unbound Studiosrecently took home the gold. The Gold Broadcast Design Award forEducational Websites, that is. Unbound won for Sesame Street's MUSICZONE Website, which combines animation, interactivity and structuredlearning of music for a pre-school audience. Using the charm andhumor of the Muppets, Unbound designed and worked closely witheducators to fashion an engaging site that combined Macromedia'sFlash and Director programs with Beatnik audio to create operas andsing-a-longs. In 2001, Unbound Studios was responsible for launchingthe SesameStreet.com Website as well as creating the series ofinteractive games that populate it. "SesameStreet.com turned out sowell, that the follow up to it had to be even better," explained BillJanczewski, creative director and CEO of Unbound. "The site is sosimple to operate, but was such a technical challenge, that at timesit seemed impossible. The result is one of the most advanced sites ofits kind in the world. It may be a 'one-of-a-kind' site at themoment." Using the Muppet characters, Unbound was able to fashionquirky and fun exercises that feel very much like the televisionshow. For instance, you can construct an entire opera by simplypulling characters onto a stage and then watch the scenario play out.Unbound has previously won Gold BDA Awards in 2001 for Disney's ROLIEPOLIE OLIE (Interactive Media Programming) and the BLUE'S CLUESscreensaver for Nickelodeon (Interactive).
