Merivale is a group owning several club, restaurant and retail stores in Sydney. The website uses simple 3D (possibly PaperVision) and photo-thumbnails as means of navigation. The site was built by deepend and the Hallway.

www.martiniasti.com

A brilliant Flash product exhibit site built by Ars Thanea, a Poland based creative agency. Though initial e-mail and password registration is somewhat annoying, the refreshing, seemless transitions of animations prove that the site is worth the wait. The centerpiece is a Martini Asti bottle and is surrounded by different sets of ornamental objects depending on the page viewed.

The drag-and-throw mouse action will rotate the bottle and change the scene.

www.simplebits.com

SimpleBits is a small web design studio based in Massachusetts, USA. I first stumbled on this little site while searching for icons - simple, elegant and unsophisticated icons. SimpleBits provides web services and icon sets for commercial uses. Though there are no freebies, the examples allow viewers to gain some insights to true minimalism design without flowery graphics and decorative arts. The site also posts many design-related articles and referral links to other useful information.

www.fat-man-collective.com

This is one of the best animated Flash web sites that I have seen around. It seems that the 2008 version is using PaperVision3D technology, making it absolutely brilliant and fun to play with. In the the portfolio presentation, items swirl around a 3D centerpiece that allows users to spin around, and site user interface is intuitive, elegant and relatively simple to navigate.

Fat-Man Collective is, like its name suggested, a group of artistic and innovative designers, animators and developers. Though the group name is called 'Fat-Man', all of its sub-groups have individual names such as 'Iam-Studios', 'Bon-Bon' and, a more subtle noun, ' Fat-Bitch '. The collective operates mainly in the UK and European region.