I found out about the work of Rex Ray through a classmate in web design class recently, and I’m really glad I did, because it’s amazing. The colors are so vibrant and the compositions are really well thought out. I find them really playful and unique.
Take a look at his work on his official website here.
All in all, a very cool webpage.
While Wikipedia was blacked out for a day, I decided to go and twitter and see how people were reacting to the protest. Most seemed to be in support of it; some folks did contact their representatives (thank you), some others used it to brandish their web skills and spread word about how to circumnavigate it and others were just plain annoyed that they couldn’t use it. Some tweeted about the things they were about to look up, which made me realize that people use Wikipedia to search for some seriously specific things.
Got Milk? (click to see website)
This is a great example of a website that really uses interactive elements to its advantage. The animation isn’t overdone, and it doesn’t come off as corny. The graphics are also very realistic and clean. The best part, though, has to be the sound. When the milk bottle spins, it makes that heavy glass-on-table scraping noise. It makes the whole experience real.
Severn Studios (Bristol, UK) does some amazing illustration work. Below are bits of their illustration work. Check out the entire prints and more here.
A while ago, I stumbled upon The Postnational Monitor, which is a “Confucianist Nations and Sub-Sahara African Focused Affairs Site.” The author of the blog also creates compilations of people’s faces from different countries so that you can see the “average” face of each country. In order to see how phenotypes change across countries, I decided to take every face he has compiled and put them into a geographical context.
Click here to see the original file (warning, it’s kinda huge) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/101467840@N04/9700611861/sizes/o/
My portfolio website is finally up.
I learned a lot making this website.
My parents invited some people over for dinner yesterday, and I found myself talking to a girl who was a junior in high school. The conversation leaned towards colleges – which schools would be good, what kind of schools to look for, etc – and as I was talking to her about which colleges I applied to, I started thinking about what made them stand out for me when I was in her place.
I realized that I definitely applied to a lot of colleges, because they had beautiful campuses and good academics. The campuses were really pretty. I thought about how college brochures always tried to entice you by projecting this vision that you would be sitting among a group of ethically-diverse friends sitting underneath a splendid display of fall foliage. It was all so picturesque.
I remember visiting RISD and thinking “This place doesn’t have a real campus. I don’t know.”
Then in the spring, the acceptance letters came. I recall being extremely excited about getting one from Middlebury College. I had worked hard on the essays for that school and wanted to take International Studies there. I visited both Middlebury and RISD again, and again I kept thinking about landscapes – about the view of the Vermont mountains from the top of the Middlebury library. I was trying to convince myself that the mountains would make the experience worthwhile. And If I didn’t love art and design, I would have absolutely gone.
But I did, and I’m glad I decided over the subject matter rather than the campus, because four years have passed, and I see how little a beautiful campus has to do with the advancement of your skills and knowledge.
Sure, it’s nice to be surrounded by perfectly tamed lawns and shiny buildings, but it’s not everything. So many colleges try to glorify their environment, you’d think that’s all we’d go for. It almost makes you forget about what’s going on inside the campus.
When my parents visited my school for the first time during parents’ weekend, my mom mistook an office building on South Main Street for the industrial design building. It’s because RISD isn’t pretty. RISD is messy and chaotic and utterly beautiful on the inside because of it.
A campus won’t tell you about a school’s academics, instructors or the tenacity and enthusiasm of its students. You have to understand the people, the process, the day-to-day ongoings of a school to really get it. RISD allows me to break things, hack things, make things better. You can’t do that in a pristine environment. You wouldn’t want to. It’s people are dedicated and passionate about their work. They are the creatives who strive every day to break boundary and not hold still. It’s not always picturesque, but I love it all the same. I’m glad I saw past the lack of campus to what the school I go to really is, because it’s made me see the world differently.
I really hope that when future college-goers see the campus, they also ponder the inner-workings of the school and how that school will make their lives richer. If you removed the scenery and the statues, is it still the same?
The Design Ocean 