The Royal Academy of Arts
If you're not in the UK and need a touch of inspiration, hit this site for this famous British museum. Amidst the rich content, highlights include the hand-drawn metanav rollovers.... Read more
webdesign
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- xtra miscellaneous (19)
Word
The original content-rich zine with fascinating monthly articles and superb overall design. Dive into the articles to absorb a wealth of refreshing design and navigation ideas. Redesigned since this review. Word's framework was enhanced by excellent Gif animations and great miniture iconography. Word's strength lied in the variety of designers that tackled the wide span of articles. Overall, it's constantly updated cornucopia of ideas, issues + culture were a web design haven. Word has since undergone some dramatic design changes - none for the better - and parts and bits of the old site can now be found only within the depths of the archives.... Read more
WHEREISHERE
WHEREISHERE is the web companion to the book about new media art & artists from the renown designers Laurie Makela and the late P.Scott Makela. WHEREISHERE is like a gallery site, but unlike other gallery sites showcased in past advents (REMEDI, FuseLab). It is more useful as a multimedia companion to the book than a stand-alone website. It presents modules of design work by progessive designers and artists mainly in QuickTime and Director formats. The site is down since this posting.... Read more
Teatr Muzyczny
A very dark and distressed promotional site for a musical theater company in Poland. This site shows how it really takes a number of elements coming together in harmony to make a great online presentation. We were very impressed with the full screen "slicing" Flash transitions, minimal use of colors, grainy diffused photos and solid type treatments. Even if you don't understand Polish, you can have a good experience just from flipping through these large page designs using a very easy to understand navigation. Dark and dramatic!... Read more
Also posted under promotional design.
Teatr Muzyczny (Musical Theater)
Swoon Magazine
Home of 'dating, mating & relating', this CondeNet 'zine featured original design and HTML that made mom proud. Redesigned since this review. Unfortunately, Swoon is no longer designed by a particular magazine and web designer we knew, but the site still maintains enough design integrity and flavors for ample inspiration. Nice colors and iconography remain, while some of the line-enforced design and interface breakdown is still hidden in the underlying structure. This site has not gone to the dogs. see also: Sundance Film Festival 1998... Read more
Super Shibuya
Maintained by a designer in France, this site showcases the visual richnesss of Japanese design - illustrations, graphic design, photography, movie posters, and even some interesting eccentricities. Super probably qualifies as our first international gallery piece - originating in France - and it was one of the first personal sites that showcased a designers' ideas, works and interests in a well designed public presentation. This style of site is still the choice presentation for independent graphic designers to self-promote their print and web work. Usually, the designers use this style of site to hone existing skills, engage new projects and work, or to publicize some interest of personal importance. Super is still up, but hasn't changed since 1997.... Read more
Super Shibuya
Spavia
Every once in a while, we come across a site or portfolio that truly breaks new ground in interaction and interface design... Of course, you don't need to read any farther to know what you can only experience by visiting the site. But let's just fill in the blanks; This is an art and industrial design portfolio website for the works of a creative duo from Hungary. Spavia (both sections) contains artworks and projects in ceramics and porcelain, silicate design products, paintings, photograms and photography. Kudos go out to these two who have obviously contemplated the medium (Flash) and made their portfolio very easy to use and understand, while also developing a highly original creation. (Added HINT: Use intuitive keyboard buttons to "walk" through instead of clicking.)... Read more
Also posted under industrial design, photography.
Spavia
Simian
Simian's fifth incarnation titled 'Journey Inwards' presents 7 semi-interactive movies that tend to induce a dreamlike state of mind. They offer a peek into the consciousness of an artist strangely enveloped in a veil of peacefulness who travels the twisted paths between brilliance, insanity and emotional distress. Take your time with these: each semi-interactive story unfolds at about 5 minutes each, with your help... hence "semi"-interactive.... Read more
RMX
Many 're-mix' projects - the sort where a sequence of designers create variations of, improvements upon or additions to an initial digital design - have come and gone... however, this is the best one we know of that still rocks on. RMX is a tight collaboration of eight Brisbane designers, launched from a desire to produce exciting visual work in an unpredictable way - generating visual works that, in the final viewing, are "as surprising to the creators as they are to the viewer".... Read more
RMX
Respiration
An online 'folio for a prolific designer with a great compositional sense. Jeff has created a number of highly detailed, textural and ultimately beautiful sites. Jeff's list of site designs reads like a Digitalthread webgallery issue. His porfolio of sites includes Land Speed Skates, the Red#40 Site, Disappearing Inc.'s Font Arsenal and the Neoglyphics Site. He has worked with Disappearing Inc, In2, Giant Step, Neoglyphics, Red#40 and CDnow.... Read more
Respiration
Qaswa
Qaswa was an early showcase of 3-dimensionality online. Great use of shading created one of the first sites with an illusion of depth. The navigation used the default vertical nature of the browser to its advantage, while the iconography complimented the smooth nature of the shading. Clean, and tightly organized, Qaswa was a truly innovative web design in the design spectrum of the time. The site has been redesigned since this posting and the Qaswa entity (now qaswa communications) is mainly focused on doing design work.... Read more
Qaswa
Prototype
An independently created classic from Sweden. Hard to believe it's just a 'prototype'. Until the Scandi webgallery arrives, this is just scratching the surface of the rich web design talent blooming in the Scandanavic regions. Mattias Jonsson brings us a dynamic wonder site from Sweden. Since this posting the old site is down, but a new innovation is promised to arrive at some point in the future. We'll keep you updated.... Read more
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Experiemental sites, and sites that explore the media of the web, using Flash, programming or design in novel ways to express artistic concepts and ideas.sponsors
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