Above The site includes images of whales to help grab the visitor’s attention. Using image formats such as
WebP meant that image sizes were kept low with no loss of quality
How we built
Right now, there’s no shortage of
people expressing their concerns
about the environment. But is there
anything that web designers and web
developers can do? New York digital
agency Red Collar believes the answer
to that question is yes and took 14 days
out to put their talents to good use.
Despite including the world’s largest
mammals (blue whales), whales are
hidden below the surface and their
plight is often ignored. In the summer
of 2019, however, a succession of
news stories hit the headlines about a
Russian ‘whale jail’, where companies
that supply marine mammals to
aquariums illegally caught and held
almost 100 beluga whales and orcas.
The publicity prompted Red Collar to
build save-whales.com, a website that
draws attention to marine conservation
in a spectacular and entertaining way,
using fun effects and 3D animation. We
caught up with co-founder and creative
director Denis Lomov to find out how
the team went about it.What was the initial brief for the
creation of this site?
The idea of the project was born during a
discussion at Red Collar. It often happens
that someone will suggest an idea for a
site, event, merchandise or similar.
We advocate for environmental
protection and keep up with the news.
At the time there was this scandal in the
news about a ‘whale jail’ in the Russian
Far East. We wanted to speak up about
the conditions these creatures were kept
in and publicly share information and
advice on how we all could do something
to help the whales.
Once we finalised the idea, we decided
to complete the project within 14 days.
This was a challenge for everybody but
the guys did it to the day.The periscope effect that lets you
change the perspective on theDENIS
LOMOV
Lomov is co-founder and creative
director of Red Collar. He guided
the creation of the site from the
idea to the release.
w: redcollar.digitalTIMELINE
Key dates in the
Save Whales project14 JUNE 2019
The idea of the project is borne out of a
discussion. A brainstorm session helps
to focus Red Collar’s mind on what the
website will look like.
17 JUNE 2019
Red Collar’s designer shares sketches of
the website layout. Once the concept is
agreed, it starts working on design in
more detail and proceeds to the
development stage.
21 JUNE 2019
Its 3D designer finishes working on the
whale models and then passes them
over to the front-end developers for
further integration.
24 JUNE 2019
Red Collar improves the homepage
slider and gets the website ready on a
test server.
25 JUNE 2019
Gathers the contents, discusses
everything and puts together the advice
for the ‘How Can I Help?’ page.
26 JUNE 2019
Finalises the photographs and text for
the site.
28 JUNE 2019
After final testing and tweaks, it
releases the website.
17 JULY 2019
Save Whales wins its first international
award, being chosen as Website of the
Day by CSS Design Awards.
26 JULY 2019
Wins another prestigious award: Mobile
Site of the Week by Awwwards.