Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Site #2 - Probe3

This is an amazing portfolio site of artist Mark Wisniowski-- from the blog of Brandon Stelter. The subtle ambient music in the background does indeed complement the design of the site as well as the work of the artist. It's very cool, clean, sophisticated.
I love the way everything is dim-- When you roll your cursor over thumb images, they are illuminated. There's a click sound you hear when you roll over the links too. I'd like to be like Mark Wisniowski!

Hot site #1 - Coca-Cola Blak

Coca-Cola Blak from Laura BOCK. The site just screams COFFEE with its colors. Then you see Coca-Cola and think "hm... coffee... and Coke?" and makes you want to find out where to click next to find out more. The moving wavy circles make me think of the word psychadelic.
I like to click on the French option-- then you hear "Coca-Cola Blak. La fusion unique de Coca-Cola et d'extraits de cafe" (yes i know, i need an accent aigu on top of that last e) in a hushed, sensitive french woman's voice. (I LOVE FRENCH!) Ok, so you entrez and there are coffee-colored silhouetted people flash animated (?) that you can click on while hearing this nice lounging jazz music-- the kind you would expect to hear when you're taking a break at a coffee shop maybe or a nightclub. The site has an atmosphere of its own.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Assignment numero UNO!

On w3.org Reading

1.What did Tim Berners-Lee think the internet would be used for?

Tim Berners-Lee hoped the internet would be used to be an "interactive sea of shared knowledge." He imagined it "immersing us as a warm friendly environment made of the things we and our friends have seen, heard, believe or have figured out" and it would be a place where sharing information would bring people closer in the world.

2. Who were the first users of the web?

The first users of the web were people who had a good experience with a "small 'home-brew' personal hypertext system used for keeping track of personal information on a distributed project"-- A group of physicists and engineers at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland) who were collaborating with other institutes to build the software and hardware for high-energy physics research.

3. What is the role of w3.org?

The World Wide Web Consortium (w3.org) is a internet "government" that is evolving protocols and trying to arrange for web developers to follow them. They "engineer the microscopic rules in the hope that the end result will be a macroscopic effect that will satisfy [them]. [They] are like little physicists tweaking the gas laws, and hoping that tomorrow the atmosphere won't accidentally condense into a small blob."

4. What is the potential of the internet today?

The internet has the potential to further strive to do what it first set out to do but even better. In the article "The World Wide Web," new information is always being posted/produced and "The availability of browsers and the availability of quality information have provoked each other." The internet has the potential to bring the world together.

5. Post 3 quotes from the article. (sorry, got carried away here-- so many great quotes from the article)

"I had (and still have) a dream that the web could be less of a television channel and more of an interactive sea of shared knowledge. I imagine it immersing us as warm, friendly environment made of the things we and our friends have seen, heard, believe or have figured out. I would like it to bring our friends and colleagues closer, in that by working on this knowledge together we can come to better understandings."

"If misunderstandings are the cause of many of the world's woes, then can we not work them out in cyberspace? And, having worked them out, we leave for those who follow a trail of our reasoning and assumptions for them to adopt, or correct."

"In order for us to make progress, we have to think about topological features of large systems, for machines and for people."

"People need to be part of the fractal pattern. They need to be part of organisms at each scale. We appreciate that a person needs a balance between interest in self, family, town, state and planet. A person needs connections at each scale. People who lack connections at any given scale feels frustrated. The international jet-setter and the person who always stays at home share that frustration."

"Could it be that human beings are programmed with some microscopic rules which induce them to act so as to form a wholesome society? Will these rules still serve us when we are 'empowered' by the web, or will evolution give us no clues how to continue?"

"Look at web "home pages." "Home pages" are representative of people, organizations, or concepts. Good ones tend to, just like people, have connections of widely varying 'length.' Perhaps as the web grows we will be able to see fractal structure emerge in its interconnections. Perhaps we ought to bear this in mind as we build our own webs."


A couple of websites that I like!!

http://www.seujorge.com/ - Brazilian singer Seu Jorge has an incredible Flash website where when you enter the site, the first thing you see is a black silhouette of a man dancing to really hip music-- Seu Jorge's! A few moments later, you see his body explode into a hundred bubbles. When you roll your cursor over them, they move with it and there is music that accompanies every bubble that your mouse scrolls over! It's like a radio station per bubble and every station is playing really very incredible music!

http://www.corinnebaileyrae.net/ - Another music artist (another one of my favorites) British singer Corinne Bailey Rae has a beautiful and delicate feminine website. It is easy to navigate through it and you can listen to her music while you peruse the site. My favorite part is the small butterflies that flutter around and the cute little flowers and stars that fall from the top of the main image window. So beautiful!!

http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com/ - A medical animation company based in Minnesota-- my favorite!! So beautiful and easy to navigate through as well. At the bottom of the page you see a box with some fluid movement and it's just easy to navigate through too-- it's a site that will hook you on and you would never want to leave because there is just so much beauty in the artwork and animations that they create.

http://www.d-lemon.com/ - Bliss Blood's graphic designer.

http://www.blissblood.com/index_cantonement.html - one of my favorite bands
http://www.blissblood.com/index_hereshow.html - same
http://www.blissblood.com/index_voodoosuite.html - same

http://www.hazmatmodine.com/ - A band from NYC led by the greatest art teacher, Wade Schuman!!

http://www.whitestripes.com/ - nice...

http://www.sixpence-ntr.com/# - another favorite band!

http://www.cassiolynm.com/ - One of my new favorite medical illustrators! Check out his new year card for 2007!!!!

http://demo.fb.se/e/ikea/dreamkitchen/site/default.html - seen in class! i love how you can scroll and see things in 3 dimensions!

...were we suppose to write what about what we technically liked about it...? (I will edit if so)

thanks fer reading, all