The Webby Awards are here again and so is your chance to voice your opinion about the best interactive work of the year. In stark contrast to the convoluted quagmire in Washington D.C. this is an opportunity to see direct democracy in action. Of course, that doesn’t mean there is no room for lobbying. Colle+McVoy’s Yearbook Yourself is in the running for the people’s voice award in the social media category. Check out the scene and cast your vote here.
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.
Here’s a fun to watch presentation originally given by Jesse Thomas at an AIGA Baltimore event that shares a sampling of the staggering statistics on the subject of the internet. Coincidentally the Twin City’s own Spunk Design Machine was just over there so something seems to be afoot in Maryland.
Anyway, this presentation is an interesting exercise in info graphics via video. My only complaint would be that each piece is often broken into a two part delivery that, given the pace, left me struggling to keep up at times. Still it’s lot’s of fun to watch and since it is linked right here on your trusty RedBlackBrown blog you don’t need to go to Baltimore and you can watch it twice to make sure you don’t miss anything. Just another public service we provide.
If you love elegantly restrained interface design AND believe that to describe Minnesota as “fly-over country” is to seriously overlook the first rate creative work forged in the heartland then do I have a site for you! Mnimal.com is an impressive and growing gallery of websites that attain that elusive minimalistic clarity. Thanks to curator Joshua Serbus and coordinator Andrew Hafferman for including BrainstormOverload in the collection of such impressive company.
Frontline On Our Digital Nation
PBS (which is arguably the only reason to own a television) hosts a plethora of quality programing including a fantastic, in depth, news program called Frontline. On Tuesday, February 2nd at 9:00 p.m. (In the Twin Cities) Frontline is airing “Digital Nation”. If you are reading this blog there is a good chance you work in a digital design field. But, whatever you do you are deeply immersed in the changes interactive media is having on our culture. Changes with far reaching consequences for everything from socialization to attention span, entertainment to warfare. Spending an hour pondering these consequences will likely be tremendously informing (and empowering if it is your job to create whatever comes next). You can see a preview on the pbs.org website.
Frontline has also been running a digital nation website about these issues where you can learn more, share your own story and take a quiz – while you email, txt, instant message and listen to music….
In a related vein NPR recently ran an interesting story about research that suggests many who think they are great at multitasking… aren’t.
As you are no-doubt well aware the internet currently resembles the imagined offspring of a mad love affair between your attic and your garage. We all know whatever we are looking for is in there somewhere we’re just not sure where. Hence the current explosion of sites like notcot.org and materialicious.com that simply aggregate cool stuff. They don’t editorialize much – if at all. They don’t even provide much context beyond the central organizational theme. As such they are like a dresser – simultaneously no big deal and amazingly useful.
For those of us in creative fields there are many excellent portfolio sites like behance.net and design:related.com that provide lots of organization along with tools, community, rating systems and the works. However, there has been an open niche for a super simple mechanism for simply finding cool stuff when “cool stuff” equals portfolios and “finding” means in a specific city. In another stroke of minimalistic brilliance 37Signals has come to the rescue by launching a new tool called sortfolio.com.
Here you can browse for web designers and companies by city and budget range. There are larger, paid modules followed by smaller, free modules. I am digging the way new modules automatically load as you scroll down the page. Check it out and get yourself listed so the wide world can find you without having to go through all that stuff they’re saving for when Antiques Roadshow comes to town.
Capsule, the most difficult to find company on the internet, has a new website. Very elegant. Cool. Subtle. And the only site I’ve ever intended to visit that ends in .us
I do miss the atmospheric beats of the previous website, now dubbed CapsuleLab. There was a spell when I used to turn it on in the background when my ipod died. Feels like that anticipatory groove loop before a Peter Gabriel concert. Oh, now you’re curious.
If you dig those funky bloops, you can craft your own looped musical grooviness at tonematrix.
Our friends at Creative Suitcase down in Austin, TX turned 4 today AND launched a new site. Looking good guys, keep up the good work!