Design of ‘The Avengers’ – Interface designs and HUDs
Wow! The Avengers did not disappoint, it was the entertaining blockbuster it was anticipated to be. What’s more, it didn’t disappoint in the way of featuring a tonne of HUDs and GUIs, and elaborating on what we loved about IRON MAN 1 & 2 thanks to the team at Cantina Creative! IRON MAN HUD Check [...]
Oblivion – Interface Design
You guys are in for a treat! GMUNK has generously compiled a montage of all the awesome UI elements from Oblivion! We’ve also got a link to a featurette with director Joseph Kosinski, GMUNK and DLEW talking about the design in the film. The things I love about the UI design in Oblivion… The consistent [...]
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn opener – data spheres and holograms
This Halo 4 opener is for the live action web series called Forward Unto Dawn. It features lots of crisp, detailed, cinematic shots characteristic of German Design/VFX studio Polynoid. I really like the occasional shots of the ship’s blinking screens, they do a great job of showing that the desolate ship still has some life [...]
Plurality – a Sci-Fi short by Dennis Liu
Plurality is a Sci-Fi short by director Dennis Liu, which explores a world where everyone’s DNA is plugged into a single information grid set in New York City 2023. Not only is the story easy to watch and compelling, it features a lot of nice UI goodies. The production quality of this film is quite [...]
Total Recall – UI Design
Here’s a highlight reel of the UI work from the 2012 remake of Total Recall, by the amazingly talented Ash Thorp. There’s quite a good range of HUDs and GUIs in Total Recall. In the clip you will see HUDs, hologram displays, scanners, maps, vehicle UI, and other touch UIs on a range of surfaces. [...]
The Matrix Reloaded – UI Design
The Matrix Reloaded explores some interfaces that exist outside the Matrix. They are only short scenes but I think it’s worth posting because the design style of the UI is so unique. The video attached features the UI from the control room to Zion and small clips showing some holograms. But the emphasis is really [...]
UI Design in Sunshine
So this is officially the first post of 2012! The story of Sunshine is centered around a group of scientists, set in a spaceship heading towards the sun. What’s great is that this scenario has been carefully considered in the UI design. Since the interfaces have such a specific audience, who are highly intelligent experts in [...]
UI Design – Ghost in the shell 2
Ghost in the Shell 2 is the first anime film we’ve featured, but will most likely not be the last. In terms of HUDs and GUIs, anime is an excellent source for two reasons. Firstly, because they often explore themes about the future and secondly because along with industrial/vehicle design, the interface designs tend to [...]
Star Trek – UI Design
I can’t really say I’m a Star Trek fan (I prefer Star Wars myself), but I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, which also happened to feature some nice interface designs. Most of them appear as either screen displays in the ships or touchscreen devices, with the exception of one short clip featuring Eric Bana [...]
UI design in 007 – Quantum of Solace
The UI design in 007 – Quantum of Solace is beautiful and well worth highlighting. MK12 who were responsible for the UI design, created a wonderful graphic style but the magic is really in the animation. A lot of love has been put into the way the interface elements move with interaction, like how there’s [...]
UI design of The Island
Made in 2005, The Island features some interesting UI concepts, some of which have been realised today. One of these is the touch screen table top that’s controlled by a glass prism. Unlike regular touch screens that work with skin contact and multitouch, this one only allows the user holding the prism to control the [...]
TRON Legacy UI
What a cool movie Tron was, the art direction of the film was amazing. I really loved the design style used throughout the film, it was very minimalist and used a lot of angled lines, geometry and neon-style glows against a dark setting that really make shapes pop out. I also like the hexagon motif [...]
Iron Man HUD part 3 – Behind the scenes
Here is an absolute gold mine of the coolest and most visually stimulating collection of interface design tests and process work from Iron Man 2. This is a real treat, thanks to the incredibly talented guys at Prologue. It’s amazing to see how much work went into the development of the designs. There’s far too [...]
Iron Man HUD part 2
The first Iron Man would have been a hard act to follow, but the team behind Iron Man 2 have done a stellar job with the design in the film. As with the first film, it is rich with beautifully designed huds, surface interfaces, interactive holograms and is full of cool ideas. It was great [...]
Iron Man HUD part 1
I’d imagine it’d be a dream come true for some designers, to be tasked with designing the HUDs and GUIs for Iron Man. Apart from the fact that Iron Man is one of the most iconic characters in the Marvel universe, his suit is supposed to house the most advanced technology imaginable. The Front and [...]
The Design of Avatar
There’s a lot of good examples of design in films, and now more and more examples of good interface design. It’s very common to see seamless integration of interface design into the story of a film. Avatar is a movie that demonstrates this really well. Overall the elements that make up the interface design style [...]
Terminator – The evolution of Machine Vision
The Terminator series provides us with some good examples of how robots could potentially view the world. With each new installment the look of the Terminators’ HUD (“machine vision”) vary slightly but mostly stays true to the overall approach of the original movie. Machine vision presents the world from the machines’ point of view and [...]
District 9 – Alien interfaces
Imagining alien technology is a whole new ball game, the possibilities are endless. District 9 have tackled the design of the alien UI in a similar way to the GUIs we are used to but with a few differences. First of all the interfaces are in an alien language and displayed and interacted with holographically. [...]
Blade Runner
Every decade has a different vision of the future, but for one reason or another I am particularly fond of the 80s. There’s just something really special about 80s films like Blade Runner and Back to the Future, especially when we look back at them today. The art direction in Blade Runner is particularly amazing [...]
Minority Report GUI
To me personally, Minority Report was a real game changer. It was an exciting look into the future with a tonne of great interfaces and imaginary technology. It turns out that Microsoft Research, MIT, and several design studios all worked on the interface designs found in the film. The visuals used in the interfaces were [...]