Panic, the company behind the Transmit MacOS app , hired us to create an interactive 3D logo for their product page. Our mission was to create a WebGL version of the app icon which had to look as close as possible to the original design (kudos to Panic designer Kenichi Yoshida for creating the cutest looking truck on the Internet).

The truck was supposed to rotate slowly by itself. And since the folks at Panic know a thing or two about playfulness, users also had to be able to manually spin it. Last but not least, this needed to run as smoothly as possible across all devices.

To achieve this goal, we took great care in recreating an optimized version of the truck 3D model, and wrote a custom shader to reproduce the beautiful lighting from the original icon.

This project perfectly illustrates how WebGL can be applied to traditional web design. This technology isn’t limited to building complex experiences such as games. It can also be used in subtle ways to add a bit of style and interactivity to a product page.