Design and digital culture NEWS // September 2003
I
haven't seen something like this site in a while: completely excessive,
eclectic, all over the place, pastel to shock colors, mixed styles...
topped with immense talent of Fons Schiedon.
Meant to be explored literally from top to bottom: FonzTeeVee!
The little
red book from 3jorn is a nice example on how to display photographs.
Not only his pictures good but there is a high quality contrast and
the nav system is cool too.
New
virus on the run! Trash
that Current Security Pack email from Microsoft by Joey deVilla
Oh
no! This is just about the worst set of news our community needs right
now!
"...Microsoft is supposed to cripple its market-leading browser
so that IE/Windows will no longer seamlessly play Flash, Quicktime, RealVideo,
or Adobe Acrobat files, Java applets, and other rich media formats. Once
the company does this, any site that uses these technologies will no
longer work in the browser most people use....
...This is not an issue just for IE,said Wallent. This is a potential
issue for Netscape Navigator, for Opera and for other browser vendors.
This is an industry issue.
...Everyone in the field is very saddened by the whole thing, that we
have to go through this exercise. The W3C has worked very hard to make
the Web remain patent free and this might be the one thing that screws
it all up. It's really very frustrating."
Suggested reading:
IE, Flash, and
patents: here comes trouble by Jeffrey Zeldman
IE
patent endgame detailed by Paul Festa
Saving
the Browser by Ray Ozzie
_ _ _ _ _ _
ndle1: Get
a step by step demo of what the creator of Lotus Notes said was available
as technology - you will see very-very-very similar to the web back in...
1993!!!
Healthy
fun building flash cards with cartoscope_demo.
Are
you into retro nostalgia? Check the 9th Exhibition site which is well
designed and offers cool stuff.
“From Marvin Gaye to Kraftwerk, Ernest Hemingway to Brett Easton
Ellis, Atari to blik, our lives are greatly influenced by music, books
and design - new and old alike. They make us the strapping people we
are today and they have all come together in one happy place that is
9th Exhibition.
Created and supported by designers, musicians, DJs and writers, 9th
Exhibition is an online store and a devoted learning center.”
I
really like this type of illustration style - very modern with a retro
feel - Luc Latulippe.
Supermarket MPREIS has
a smashing new site that you need to explore as you would a large surface
store.
Brought to you by the good guys at transporter.
MASSIVE
CHANGE / An international discursive project on the future of design
culture an initiative by Bruce Mau Design and the Institute without
Boundaries.
A
trendy style design served with a personal twist: HappyKreg does
cut the mustard! The projects are excellent and the *identity* section
is awesome. That's what I call communication prowness!
Emerging
great ideas and projects at Design
for Freedom.
Don't
be fooled by the seemingly simple index, Prototype Syndicate rocks! Check
their mission, their information organization and last but not least,
their projects!
When community sounds so passé in view of the past 3 years economic
fallout, this group have positioned themselves with the best possible
of asset: talented people!
Unique!
One word defines this grungy looking site .Gara
di Nervi. The patterns are stamped in an eclectic way and the picture
broken to become art and the icons, small but wonderfully executed.
Mozilla.org announces
launch of the Mozilla Foundation to lead open-source browser efforts!!!
YEAH!
“Mozilla was developed in an open source environment and built
by harnessing the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet.
Going forward, we will continue to partner with developers and industry
leaders to keep content on the Web open.”
Read the complete press
release.
Mozilla has got a new build version 1.4 for download
and a stand-alone mail client called The Thunderbird
Mail Project.
Tony
Spaeth promotes Identitywork where
the uses of identity as a leadership tool are studied and celebrated.
Makes for good reading - he is abrasive, witty and critical.
DSGN+plug
main idea and concept for the site is to gather all *portuguese* new
media projects around the world. No small task, mind you!!!
You can help? Let them know.
One
button navigation?!?! Kollektief's
got it. How simpler can't this get? Excellent work for this interior
architects group. Brought to you by xtra talented group94 who
did Strato Cucine site a little
while ago.
Hats off to Pascal + Klaas!
Unusual
presentation with mix hand written words and illustrations for CRKL1DSGN that
has very creative and outstanding projects to show for.
SKWAK shows
the little box navigational system that is wholly part of the site overall
design.
On
an altogether different field of matter Andres sent this link:
Why
Am I Getting All This Spam? Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research
Six Month Report from the Center for Democracy & Technology / March
2003 after I had shared how I was sick and tired of stupidoo obsession
with size or to be shocked out of my wits by gross graphics that becomes
a daily deluge in my inbox...
Though it dates back to March, this report is really not outdated...
So read it and start taking some precautions... like having a form on
your (clients) web sites that runs without any email... like the one
we use.
Spam and porn are the great rapers of OUR world wide web
and they should be punished for not only hijacking our bandwidth but
also our human dignity!
Our
new powagirrrl, Joanna Chmielewska
aka BACK2MINE 
photography
portfolio is as excellent as varied in subject and topics.
Pixietype.com is
a { new pixel foundry }- don't we luv those!
Based
on a well-know Montreal comedian (Benoit Briere who sports a short-short
crew cut normally :) has been playing central character to a telco ad
campaign for years now, and has become, some kind of an urban icon because
of all the brilliant personas he's done over the years.
In fact, I think it right to state so: it's probably a unique phenomena
since there is always a high level of anticipation to see what
he's going to do next - in the next campaign. These really make me laugh
silly!
He has this virtuosity of embodying multiple personalities within a
same ad, Monshowsolo is another
example of his talent... put to the service of a wireless phone company.
Independentsday.org is
moving! New version / project to be announced shortly; stay tuned!
The
way Ivan Garcia catches people in his photography, is beautiful and brimming
full of life.
nuage
interactive is a nice and fast loading site to display quality
projects! The section graphics are beautiful.
Want a sound experience? Check Gramophone who
produces sound tracks for commercials. The creative navigation (sound on and put the little left round in the circle to hear a different sound mix) and the portfolio section. WoW!
This
is probably one of the most amazing flash animation site I've seen...
and it claims being in beta!!! Cartoon shorts are available and by mouseeing
over and clicking on the house the menu will appear. Imagine when Xiiin moves
to full version.
Enjoy a pure fun visual feast.
Wanna
know what's at stake? Well Mr. Alvey, creative founder of Meet the Makers,
launched a *social* experiment which is not surprising since although
he is a geek by profession, he is a talented *people-person* and a genuinely
curious guy!
So this uh... Blogstakes experiment
tackles an audacious concept and some innovative ideas: How long should
a contest last? If you make it too long will people not bother signing
up because they have no sense of urgency?
What kinds of prizes spread the fastest? Find out for
yourself.
OH!
Accomplished artist? Even that is an understatement in reference to what
powagirrrl Adriana has cumulated as creative endeavors over the years...
Breathewords is splendid!
_ _ _ _ _ _
ndle: Best
of the year 2003
Who
said official government sites had to be boring? Check the Department
of Civil Aviation of Malta!
Flash-Safe
Fonts brought to you by ala webstatt
& chmork.net first class webdevelopment. All of their fonts have
been revised to work properly in Flash.
These pixelfonts will now show up fresh and crispy, even
if used with dynamic text. Please refer to the readMe-files attached
to every font for detailed information.
Travis
Beckham who is art director at Look and Feel is self described as *a
designer who loves to code and is obsessed with patterns*.
Well this guy really means it, there are over a 100 of them! Squidfingers aptly
describe is multi-interests!
Mixing
retro graphics with hand notations, Wonksite displays
a nice design and photography portfolio.
Content?
Or Dis-content? A Content Requirements Plan (CRP) helps Web designers
take a leadership role by GA.Buchholz from Contentology.
“To many, content is the gift while design is the shiny giftwrap
around it...In fact, designers have always known that design and content
are, ultimately, interlinked. Change one, you change the other.”
If you are a writer or are involved with content his site is a good
resource.
_ _ _ _ _ _
ndle1: Well
it seems that content is still King after all!
No
this is not an avant-garde art site - it is... a clothes design site. Butterfly-Soulfire in
one word: xtra original!
The
cutest illustrations can be seen on sMallandRounNd artwork
portfolio!
Herr
Knoblauch is a retro style site for a copywriter from germany.
Nice visual pitch!
VDL2 is
one of Montreal's pioneering internet agency: one of its founders helped
build the Minitel in France. Well these early endorsers have (finally!!!)
revamped their website! Gone is the index with links to their clients
projects. They now have a well-documented and cool corporate website!
Another proof of concept, that a table_less, css and xhtml validating
site, running powerfull backend apps to cast information, can have a
visually enticing design!
Netdiver
new design forte recipient: DigitalBrand a known-cure for visual blah
syndrome!
There is definitely a new trend in software looking chrome interfaces
and navigational elements that seems to be directly inspired by Mac OS
pill shaped icons...
But, this one has pushed the limits using their own very visually effective
logo that looks like a button cursor on a music mixer console.
Smart! Implies, depending in which direction you turn the button, you
get a different mixed sound... in this particular case, a different mixed
and well balance service offering.
Now I intentionally used their placeholder as snapshot for one compelling
reason. The iconic treatment is beautiful - the 3D effects well done
BUT you've got a choice of interfaces sizes which are truly engaging
the visitor. I've tried and all are working!
Now when you start visiting - though the simplicity and mostly grayscale
interface may almost produced the *blah* syndrome... the catchy blue
spots do work in catching your attention and thus, entices you to start
experimenting... with the different areas.
Voilà all backgrounds graphics are superb, well researched and
rendered... the logo is so cute you don't mind seeing it all over and
honestly the efforts made to make each picture encase it in a 3D perspective
is awesome!
The functionalities like the menu, drag and drop of the different elements,
the cursor that changes into a hand, the music controls (though I suggest
having more than one tune available) and scrolling graphic for the portfolio
is exquisitely perfect!
Now were I a client, this is the kind of *pampering* I would be expecting!
Interesting
twist to this copycat situation which seems to indicate that perhaps
both logos were inspired by the form from this “instruction page”
of ketupat
weaving (bottom of page).
In my opinion this is a case of exceptional circumstances leading to
the same design results. The world being in our backyard it is nearly
impossible to control such incidences.
Bramelia's designer just contacted me and will look into this unfortunate
*copycat* incident. Stay tuned to learn how this resolves.
Just received a message concerning a potential copycat which like my
senders remarks, there seems to be an increase in such lately. All sites
and projects published on netdiver, are so in good faith. We have suffered
from copycats and there are owners who have not heed our requests to
remove content taken (issue resolved - the company has taken down our
content) from our site (click on the link for the book and see what referrer
comes up on Amazon.).
If it does come to our attention that there is a substantiated and reasonable
doubt for the source of design we remedy to this by immediately removing
site from our directory. Also keep in mind that *ideas* can pop-up in
the minds of different individuals and they are not necessarily aware
of the others, thus, there has to be fairness in assessing such.
Check out the striking simularites in these 2 logos. It seems that Yorkeprinting have
created the original logo:
And this would be and bramelia's copy:
What
I particularly like about Bramelia - is not only its lively simplicity
but the *interactive* section of the portfolio displays an outstanding
row of wonderfully well designed projects.
Don't
be derailed by the strange menu - each link leads to a mini-gallery of
pictures: panism | pansnap
Informative,
factual (the environmental information provided as percentages are staggering)
and a great storyboarding sequence whereas the narrator (sound on) gently
ads substance to explain what the The
Tofte Project is about.
Union
Fonts : Independent Font Collection was added to our Designers toolbox!
Encouraging the good stuff! Brought to you by the good guys at SUMO.
Jeffery
Kirk photography has an eclectic assemblage of people, places and
things that shows a tremendously imaginative capacity for visual composition.
(Not)
Defining the damn thing by Louis Rosenfeld
“Discussions of how we should label ourselves and
define our work are like flu epidemics. They break out from time to time,
follow a fairly predictable course, and often make us want to barf.”
Simple,
simple and effective to convey craftmanship and excellence: Woodworker!
A
quick note, to let you know the 20
finalists of the Everday Life Competition are now online!
Out
of the Ashes. The rebirth of the city of Hiroshima in the 58 years since
it was destroyed by an atomic bomb demonstrates mankind's irrepressible
instinct for survival by C. Creed O'Hanlon updates the state of Hiroshima.
A
new Creative Behavior issue
is out: The Organic Grid + Demystifying the Semantic Web: is migration
right for you? Good readings!
For
people who make websites:
worth learning from articles
In
remembrance: Live to give peace a chance
...piece by piece of immaterial light rises
and these one moment lost lives
live again...
for it takes darkness to see light...
Make a stand to LIVE to honor them. Take that project, that future education
or intention, that kid of yours in your arms today. Today, is all the
life we have! LIVE, LOVE with all your might.
This 911 info page
was first published Sept 11 around 10h30 am and updated round the clock
non-stop until Sept 16 late pm on the what's new page which reached a
worldwide audience. We broadcasted news and updates on the e_list which
proved to be a vital news link because so many were out of connection.
Through this effort in the new media community - tremendous solidarity
and testimonials were received - to all of you thanks.
We did a photoshoot on ground-zero 10 days after. To this day, these
pictures have not been publicly released except for this one of an artist
who day in and out caught the scene on canvas.
Essays which are part of the official september11.archive.org
Take
a stand for world peace! + We will never forget; we will forgive
Never underestimate the power of one!
Today in cities around the world, New York, Bruxelles, San Francisco,
Paris, Florence, Montreal, Quebec, and elsewhere, thousands of individuals,
thinkers, artists and writers will do a Poetic Attempt, whereas a beloved
book in which you voice what you think with a dedication, comment, personal
info or a drawing will be left in public areas, on a bench, in a coffe
shop or in the subway for others to find.
Let's turn this sad day into a day of sharing!
Le
jeudi 11 septembre 2003, des millions d'attentats poétiques seront
commis en libérant des livres! Parce qu'un livre est synonyme
d'échange avec le monde, en ce jour du jeudi 11 septembre 2003,
munissez-vous d'un livre, un livre que vous aimez et qui a changé votre
regard sur le monde.
Écrivez-y une dédicace, un petit mot, votre adresse ou
un dessin ....et libérez-le !Sur la voie publique ou sur un banc,
dans le métro ou dans un café... à la merci d'un
autre lecteur. Une façon de transformer cette triste date, une
façon de dire au monde ce que vous pensez et ce que vous voulez
dire. A New York, Bruxelles, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, Montréal,
Québec, et ailleurs.
Un peu partout dans le monde, ce JEUDI 11 SEPTEMBRE 2003, des milliers
d'individus anonymes, penseurs, artistes, écrivains, toutes croyances
et confessions confondues, sur la place publique, libéreront un
livre aimé, pour le partager avec d'autres.
Ce jour là, libérer un livre, c'est en trouver
un autre.
Need
to reboot your creative juices? Read food for thoughts articles on afterchaos.
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news
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