Imagine setting out on a great biking adventure. You’re riding a beautiful new bike in wonderfully comfortable clothes across a ravine in the Grand Canyon … or (change scene) across a steep bridge above the rushing Niagara Falls … or (change scene again) imagine the wind through your helmet as you pedal through lush Yellowstone National Park, complete with birds and crickets chirping. If you need any help visualizing such multiple scenarios, go to and allow the subtle sounds and great biking destinations to fi ll the screen and air around your computer. Ryan Goodwin and the creative team at Struck have created a virtual biking website that allows visitors to take to the road.

The starting point is the concept of shopping redefined. “The D4Wgear project was really to create a site that speaks to the way women shop,” says Goodwin. “The creatives at Goodby [lead agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco] designed an elegant product site centered on the concept of coordination and accessorizing. So articles of clothing are shown in tandem with a complete riding outfit, and these outfits are then linked to their coordinating bicycles. The final product is a highly functional, cross-referenced site.”

Struck’s successful execution of the D4W site was first of all due to the way the firm carefully defines its working process. The architectural and building industry is a business model for Struck’s virtual developments. “One of our strengths as a studio is that our creative team is comprised of both designers and developers. It’s no different than having the same company design and build your house. The architect and the contractor work together, along the project path.”

As the team works to produce a seamless product, planning is critical, “Every Flash user experience like this is basically a custom software package. New features and logic go behind every digital initiative we do,” says Goodwin. “When we are building something custom, there is always an element of the unknown. The right planning can minimize the unknown, or at least contain it.” The firm uses tools like wireframes, final design comps and product requirements documents which, Goodwin remarks, “become the architectural plans we build to.”

On the flip side of the technical, the firm keeps its creative process “purposefully malleable.” Goodwin explains, “Trying to force a process on creative thinking can sometimes backfire, since it may be the very lack of a set way of doing things that allows the team to think in unconventional ways. The common thread on any given project, though, is the drive to make exceptional work. Exceptional thought. Exceptional design. Exceptional movement. Exceptional code.” Ultimately, the secret to success in designing and building a web product is, as Goodwin puts it, “controlled and honed collaboration.” Alyson Beaton