9 posts tagged “web 2.0”
Grunge Design is a chaotic and abstract design style from the 1990’s arguably coined by David Carson, dubbed the ‘godfather of grunge.’ Ok, fast forward to 2008. Smashing Magazine.com posted an article last week which states: “Shiny and glossy design elements are now officially outdated. Just like retro is becoming trendy again, the grungy look appears to rapidly gain on [sic] popularity.”Is 90’s grunge design coming back? And how do designers feel about it?
One of our Art Directors here at Tuesday Creative, Andrew Seles, took particular umbrage with this from the Smashing post: “In our everyday environment we’re unlikely to find ideal geometric forms or pretty shadow effects as they are manifested by glorious web 2.0-designs.” Andrew’s response: “While this once was the case, it is increasingly less so. Not only is media sleek these days, but our environments are becoming more refined. Whether it’s the latest in architecture and environmental graphics, a new chair at Ikea or snacking at a boutique eatery like Pink Berry, the real world places we inhabit and the objects we interact with are more polished and highly designed than ever.”
Jennifer Murse, a designer at Tuesday said: I DON’T love the aesthetic when it’s done well, but I hate it when it’s done poorly.” Murse went on to cite these examples, which in her opinion, display well executed (Subdued.net), (Misprintedtype), (THS), (MindTwitch), Grunge Design, poor use of (Jeremy Zevin), (Satsu) it, and even some who claimed a grunge aesthetic, but were not successful (AJMiles), (WebDesigner) in pulling it off.
This co-opt of 90’s design is best captured with the following quote from Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Lo-Fi Grunge Style…
“If there is indeed ‘nothing new under the sun’ (as the author of
Ecclesiastes repeatedly asserts), one way to come up with a ‘fresh’
style is to go back in time a few decades, cut what you find, and paste
it into the present.” Today’s grunge design, however, is not nearly as
exciting as the 90’s not because ‘it’s been done’, but because the new
grunge no longer feels like a rebellious aesthetic. David Carson’s edgy
abrasive design and typographic art is now being appropriated to
resemble a scrap-book party rather than a military coup. On the
flipside, negative feedback from the public that the 90’s aesthetic was
illegible and confusing may have driven today’s designers to create a
more palatable and modern grunge. For better or worse, grunge has
officially returned!
Ironically, it may be a misnomer to call grunge retro. After all, did
it ever really go away? Take a look at distressed fashions and
splattered rock graphics of the last decade. Torn edges and weathered
textures might be as much a nod to the 1990’s as they are to the
1890’s. The steady recycling of yesterday’s styles may already have
lapped itself several times over. The grunge movement of the 1990’s was
itself a throwback to the counter-culture of the 60’s and early 70’s
(Woodstock II, anyone)? Have we reached a critical mass where the term
“retro” is an oversimplification? Perhaps, much of today’s work may at
best be “inspired by” or at worst grossly “derivative of” what came
before it.
- B. Juergens, C. Lin, A. Seles
Just like the endless barrage of airbrushed cosmetic commercials advertising ‘new and improved must have products’ that are ‘guaranteed to change your life forever,’ it seems these days you can’t spend too much time online without encountering another ‘take charge of your life and get organized’ 2.0 GTD site. Seemingly endless in their availability, GTD 2.0 makes getting organized look ever so attractive and (dare we say it) fun, and are currently cluttering search engines everywhere.
For the uninitiated, GTD is not the name of a car as it certainly looks and sounds, but is an acronym for the rather straightforward (if not uninspired) methodology “Get Things Done.” This time management system, developed by David Allen, focuses on five key stages of … well … getting things done. Namely collection, processing, organizing, reviewing and then … doing. The idea behind GTD is to get as much of your tasks off your mind as possible and, by recording them elsewhere, enough memory space is freed up in your brain so you can then concentrate on actually getting those tasks done.
… and sometimes, ad nauseum.
I’m not saying that these sites don’t have their uses—I for one am a confirmed Backpacker. (And Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush did literally avert untold disaster on a recent holiday.) The GTD ideology is, likewise, not without its valid points. But like the products advertised in aggressive cosmeceutical marketing, It’s unlikely that any one of these sites will bring about the incredible changes in your life that you’re hoping for. The problem? For me, it’s the simple paradox that using these sites requires an ability to remember to use them—a skill which proves to be a problem for many a GTDer in the first place.
So is investing your time into the overabundance of Internet GTD apps a worthy endeavor or is it just a waste of your ruddy time? You decide. There’s certainly no shortage of sites to test out.
- Carley Johnson
As you’ve certainly deduced by its cleverly analogous title, TeacherTube is an online community designed for teachers and students to share instructional educational videos focused for teachers and students alike. Their motto is “teach the world,” and this singularly intriguing site certainly has done just that in its brief four-month lifetime, and has fostered a very vibrant international community.
YouTube enthusiasts will recognize that TeacherTube is almost an exact carbon copy of the aforementioned viral phenomenon complete with channels and groups—but instead of being populated with videos like “Paris in Jail The Music Video”, you’ll find the likes of “Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism” or “Mrs. Burk’s Simplified Fraction Rap.”
And one of the best things about it? No stupid video comments that say “OMG. This is sooooo lame,” and the inevitable oh-so expertly crafted comeback of “no, U R lame.”
Particularly impressive is a recent fascinating discussion of web 2.0 technologies and language learning for teachers. Have a look.
- Carley Johnson
Chat Maker brings web 2.0 technology to the rather neglected chat room arena. (Hello, haven’t chat roomers ever heard of AIM?) Created by AJAX, it is an incredibly simple client that allows you to create a private chat room in five seconds flat with a simple click of a button which is a terribly cliché, I know, but in this instance it just happens to be true. Chat Maker is intended for communication with people who don’t have instant messaging clients, but it yields some interesting possibilities for the workplace too. If you don’t want to hassle with calling a meeting, you can pull your peeps into a chat room for a quick tête-à-tête. Sure it doesn’t have the pizzazz of IM avatars or sound effects or video cams and you can’t import your contact lists…but most of the intended beneficiaries of Chat Maker probably think AJAX is just a cleaning agent anyway so, no harm no foul.
- Carly Johnson
If you’re like me, then the words ‘how do people come up with this stuff’ are never far from your lips when perusing the blogosphere. Sometimes it’s said in horror, sometimes in envy, but always in very real awe over what some of our fellow bloggers are able to dream up.
So to the owner of “thatsmygirlfriendasshole.blogspot,” I salute you.
This fella has created a hilarious blog that targets the “missed connections” section on Craigslists all over the country. (And in case you don’t know what a “missed connections” is, it’s a page dedicated to things like “I saw you at the Ivy last night wearing a red dress drinking a Cosmo and I think you’re hot, how about dinner?”) He's decided to get a rise out of hook-up hopefuls around the country by responding to their missed connection posts with the surly, standard line of "that's my girlfriend, a**hole."
The replies, as you can imagine, are quite colorful and he posts them on his blog for all to see.
My personal favorite:
Green Dyed Tips (05/24/07) - m4w - 23 (Midtown East)
Date: 2007-05-24, 12:39PM EDT
8:00am
59th Street Lexington Avenue Station
N\R platform
You walked by me in leopard print sundress, and you wore it beautifully with that walk of yours. We locked eyes until you passed by me enough to keep the stare yet not turn your head back.
Maybe I'll see you again.
Re: Green Dyed Tips (05/24/07) - m4w - 23 (Midtown East)
Yeah, that's my girlfriend, you asshole.
Re: Re: Green Dyed Tips (05/24/07) - m4w - 23 (Midtown East)
From: pers-337465827@craigslist.org
My deepest apologies to you, I didn't notice the "I belong to [someone]" banner written all over her forehead. Oh, and the name calling, nice one for showing how immature you are.... a simple "she's taken" would have done the
job just right.
P.S. I do Photoshop work, a free version of that banner available just for you.... just ask.
- Carley Johnson
When my friend asked me if I was on Twitter I replied with an emphatic 'NO!' I thought in my head: 'no, no, not another social networking tool to waste my time with.' From blogs and general buzz, I had heard about Twitter and already dismissed it without even taking a glance at the site.
My friend invited me and that's all it took. I couldn't deny the request, so I just accepted it and now...I'm officially an addict. I think my obsession has something to do with the Twitter badge on Myspace. Now when my friends look at my page they will know what I'm eating or thinking at the moment. It sounds so...invasive. But there's something very interesting about sharing the most mundane and momentary bits of information with people at any time and any frequency. Hmmm...I'm not sure what it is. Well for now, I'm hooked. Although I may change my mind at any moment and you can find out by logging onto Twitter.
- Chy Lin
As any designer and programmer will tell you, the hardest thing to do is getting a website optimized and working correctly on Mac OS X and, Windows for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Well, something strange has happened lately that no one expected. But in an unexpected turn of events, a new platform with a surprisingly large user base has suddenly appeared which has many sites now rushing to tap into this new audience. What could it possibly be that will soon cause programmers world wide to pull out their hair and go prematurely gray? Two words: gaming consoles. The Wii, in particular—even though the PS3 also has a proprietary web browser.
With consoles behaving a lot more like Home PCs, it really comes down to what the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are willing to allow users and designers to do with the system. That’s where it gets tricky. Unlike your typical Home PC, game consoles are extremely closed systems. You don’t have any upgrade choices, if any, other those provided by the manufacturer. Especially Nintendo, whose online gaming philosophy has been to make it as hard as possible to connect with other for a quick game; all in the name of keeping kids safe from “potential” harm. It will take some give and take to fully realize the potential of surfing the net in the comfort of your sofa.
But hey, we can dream…
- Miguel Campos
OpenCongress.org brings the U.S. government into a Web 2.0 space. Co-creator David Moore describes it:
One of the problems we were aiming to address is that there is a lack of comprehensive, usable web resources for people and groups writing about bills and issues in Congress. The Library of Congress website, Thomas, doesn't do nearly enough to make Congressional information accessible—meaning that political bloggers didn't have anywhere helpful to link when discussing Congress, that there wasn't a way for their readers to get the "big picture" behind an issue. The lack of public knowledge about what's really happening in Congress breeds apathy about political change in general.
OpenCongress helps close the information gap between political insiders and the public by bringing together official government information from Thomas (by way of GovTrack.us), news articles from Google News, blog posts from Technorati, campaign contribution data from OpenSecrets.org, and more—to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress.
- Chy Lin
Here is a well done video presentation that frames up the implications of the cloud of communication and technology trends known as Web 2.0.
It was written and edited by Michaels Welsh, Professor of Cultural
Anthropology at Kansas State University. It's obviously making the
rounds on lots of blogs, but I thought it worth noting here because of the emphasis
Michael puts on the human impact of these rapidly evolving global
communication trends.
Cheers,
-Aaron
