Layer
Tennis
Live
What's All This Then?
This is Layer Tennis, a live, weekly series of design competitions, presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 3. It was created by Coudal Partners. We've made lots of other stuff too.
Play-By-Play Commentary
I'll Show You 'Outside the Box'
Whoa. Take your browser window and stretch it wide, my friends. If you've widened it to the full width of your screen already, run out and buy a 30-inch display.
There's never been a shot like this in Layer Tennis before. Inman isn't just playing with the surrounding elements on the web page -- he's consuming them. The rules call for an image 900 x 280 pixels; Inman's magnum opus measures a whopping 1920 x 458. I questioned how Inman's original concept could fit in the box, and Inman has answered, and that answer is "Fuck the box."
Fair? I don't know. But impressive? Hell yes. At a technical level, the image is inserted as a CSS background, which provides it with precise interplay with the web page elements even when the browser window is resized. (Alas, it also prevents those of you on small displays from scrolling to see the entire image. Seriously, get a new display, cheapo.) My sideline sources tell me Inman planned this out in advance -- at least technically -- with the tacit approval of the Layer Tennis honchos.
It's not just big, though, it's fiendishly clever: Markers for volleys 9 and 10 which do align, standard size be damned. A "Ketchup" marker for the B match, mocking those laggards for having fallen, as of this writing, two volleys behind the pace of this match (get it? "catch up"?). A corresponding "Mustard" marker referring to nothing other than its own color, but which color was plucked from the Layer Tennis web page design itself. And then, literally to top it all, a pixel-perfectly-placed "I ♥" next to the "Layer Tennis Live" in the page header.
My scorecard had this match tilted toward Glass heading into the final round, but I'm calling this one the best shot of the entire Layer Tennis season.
Play by play commentary for this match is provided, as it happens, by John Gruber.
GET INVOLVED
Here's how the game works. Jump into the Layer Tennis Forums, we'll be taking the pulse of the conversations there to declare a winner. You can also subscribe to our Layer Tennis RSS feed and follow along via Twitter.
Live Match Blog
Congrats to totopromo, the in-forum contest winner, and Operator, the remix winner. We have some Jewelboxing and Swap Meat items to send out to you. We're also sending packs of Field Notes to reo5th, BMB and naamyo. Email your shipping info to dawson at coudal.com.
Today is your last chance to sound off about who won Friday's Layer Tennis Matches and to post your remix/contest entries too.
On the last Friday of the season we played two matches at the same time, Koxvold vs Hutchinson and Glass vs Inman. There was a lot of action on the court and a lot in the forums too.
The Schedule
All matches took place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6.
The First Season
January 25 - Match 1 | View Match
Chris Glass vs Shaun Inman*
Commentary by John Gruber | Forum
January 25 - Match 2 | View Match
Jason Koxvold* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Forum
January 11th | View the Match
Veerle Pieters* vs Cindy Li
Commentary by Kevin Guilfoile | Match Forum
December 14th | View the Match
Matt Owens vs Jason Gnewikow*
Commentary by Joshua Allen | Match Forum
December 7th | View the Match
Jason Koxvold* vs Bran Dougherty-Johnson
Commentary by Matt Haughey | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Effects®
November 30th | View the Match
Trevor Van Meter* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Bryan Bedell | Match Forum
This match was played using Adobe® Flash®.
November 16th | View the Match
Aaron Draplin* vs David Nakamoto
Commentary by Steven Heller | Match Forum
November 9th | View the Match
Scott Hansen* vs Rob Cordiner
Commentary by Alissa Walker | Match Forum
November 2nd | View the Match
Marian Bantjes* vs Armin Vit
Commentary by Heather Armstrong | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Illustrator®
October 26th | View the Match
Brian Taylor vs Jason Santa Maria*
Commentary by Matthew Baldwin | Match Forum
October 19th | View the Match
Naz Hamid vs Chris Glass*
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Match Forum
October 12th | View the Match
Steven Harrington* vs Chuck Anderson
Commentary by Jason Kottke | Match Forum
October 5th | View the Match
Neil Duerden vs Mathew Star Thomas*
Commentary by Debbie Millman | Match Forum
September 28th | View the Match
Kevin Cornell* vs Shaun Inman
Commentary by John Gruber | Match Forum
* =winner
Presented by Adobe Creative Suite 3. Creative license, take as much as you want.
Hosting and technical advice by the nation's most
gracious hosting company, Tilted.
Layer Tennis was created by Coudal Partners in Chicago. We also created Jewelboxing for making awesome disc packaging and The Deck, an ad network targeted at creative folks.
