Layer Tennis For Fun And Competition

The Web site is layertennis.com, and it’s a venture by Coudal Partners with support from Adobe to promote Creative Suite 3. The concept in a nutshell is a back-and-forth between two designers: one creates a creative work and passes it off to another designer, who works with it to make another creative piece that then goes back to the original designer. This back-and-forth goes for ten “volleys” and, by the end, some interesting stuff has taken place! Along with the work there’s some funny commentary on the “match” and forums where you can play armchair quarterback and talk about the matches with other attendees.

I had heard about the Layer Tennis site some time ago and had taken a look, but it did not do a whole lot for me because early matches were strictly images—no video or multimedia. The work was interesting but not striking to me—like a lot of stuff designed “by designers, for designers” that you see in design magazines. However, on November 30 the Web site hosted a match between two Flash designers and that’s when I think some really awesome stuff started happening. That November 30 match, between Trevor Van Meter and James Hutchinson, is alone worth the trip to layertennis.com. They’ve hosted two matches since then, both of them showcasing motion graphics, and the fact that it’s moving really makes the work jump off the page.

Check it out here!