Rarely does a website effortlessly challenge standards, consume the viewer, and give full control over to the user. The rules are the rules: A site must be X pixels wide, the images Xkb each, content should be above the fold, nobody reads in a slideshow, and dammit make that slideshow slide faster. Immersive experiences tend to be the domain of flash sites which dazzle with animation, video, sound, and little content.
A screen grab doesn't do justice. Check out the site, roll over this masthead, enjoy.
Pictory is a rare site for its format of massive images woven together by a variety of text content and custom stylesheets for each series of posts. It amounts to an intensely compelling experience, immersing the reader. Rather than commanding ‘view each image once, click an arrow, view the next image, repeat’, Pictory compels the user to consume the content at a contemplative pace, it’s impossible not to.
We’re probably a bit too excited—and definitely tardy—to congratulate our friend and collaborator David Gunn on his inclusion in the New Museum’s compendium of contemporary artists, Younger than Jesus. The publication complements the first major international museum exhibition devoted to the generation born around 1980, and their contributions to the current contemporary art discourse. David, as Incidental, is recognized for his engaging musical and interactive work. He brought us in on the Echo Archive project, pictured in the book and generously credited our studio by name.
Incidentally (punpun), we recently launched an appendage to the Echo Archive site, providing more project information and updating the aesthetics of the quirky jukebox. We’re still quite proud of the result and are exceedingly proud of our man in Britain. Hats off to you, DG.
Sight Unseen is a lovely site with some interesting touches. I love the text only, integrated advertising banner. It does the job for the advertiser and more, by associating closely with the aesthetic perspective of the editors.
A strong stylistic voice smartly implemented in color, type, and interaction.
I also admire the mix of typefaces and colors, it’s the flare of print design well ported to the web. Since the site is about the process behind the product, I’d love to see the people and effort behind this work.
Via The Scout.
(They keep coming!)
In its slow but certain ascension to overthrow television, and as the de facto medium for viewing videos online, YouTube still lacks many of the subtlety and forethought some of its competition has implemented. Some of of those lapses are simply silly.
When one subscribes to someone’s (or some organization’s) content, they are given a notification: “Your subscription to ‘ChannelName’ has been added. Edit subscription”
Big Yellow button is appealing. I click it.
I'm a confirmed subscriber. Yay.
All good, right.
But, as a valued subscriber, next time you watch their content, you’re given the same treatment as if you had not. If you click the ‘Subscribe’ button, you’re told that “You are already subscribed to ChannelName”. Just don’t offer it then!
Originally only US phones had letters associated with numbers, because we hit the need for 7 digit numbers first and mnemonic devices were used (7 digit NNN-NNNN was considered too much to memorize so they did LLL-NNNN). No letters were associated with 1 for technical reasons, nor with 0 (zero), which was reserved still for operator in places other than hotels. The mnemonics were like TREmont-8264, so Q and Z were left out leaving numbers 2-9 three letters each.
When alpha became vogue for other reasons, competing telephone manufacurers around the world came up with different solutions for integrating Q and Z (how else can you market 1-800-ANTIQUE?). Many had the bright idea to put them on the 1 key (no longer a technical obstical, while 0 still meant operator). When it came time to find a global solution, fights ensued because nobody likes to change, or to lose. In the UK, oddly, the O and Q were put to the O (matching shapes?) and the Z was still ignored.
Photo Credit: Granty on Flickr.
Steve Lewis, leading the IA team at Bell Labs, went to bat for reason and sanity, going to Geneva for an international standards meeting. His argument? The alphabet should go in alphabetic order. Who can argue with that?
