art & web design | inspirational | photoshop and imageready | dreamweaver | flash | other interesting websites
Art and Web Design Resources
Articulation: Learning to Look at Art <www.brigantine.atlnet.org/GigapaletteGALLERY/websites/ARTiculationFinal/SubHeadings/HomePage.htm>
The content of this website is wonderful (even if some of the image files are a little messed up). This website is a great place to do some research on the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design.
Principles of Graphic Design <www.mundidesign.com/presentation/index2F.html>
This site, by Mundi Design Studios, has a neat and quick way to get an introduction to the principles of design. Topics include: color theory, composition and layout, perspective, and typograpy. Make sure you roll over everything, there is a lot of information that is hidden!
Color in Motion <www.mariaclaudiacortes.com>
This incredible Flash-based website is "an interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism." It is educational, creative, and really fun and it was one of the winners in the 2004 Communications Arts Interactive Annual.
Professor Jim Saw's Design and Composition Notes <daphne.palomar.edu/design>
Jim Saw is a design professor at Palomar College here in San Diego. At his website you will find "fundamental concepts for designing two-dimensional artwork. The theory is straight-forward and stripped to essentials."
ArtsConnectEd <www.artsconnected.org>
ArtsConnectEd is a very cool website by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. They have a huge collection of art to view, articles to read, online activities to play, audio and video samples to listen to and watch, etc. Make sure you really spend some time exploring to find eveything they have available. Also, make sure to check out their "Artist's Toolkit" which will help you with some of the the Art Elements and Principles of Design: <www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/>
ArtLex Art Dictionary <www.artlex.com>
ArtLex is an amazing "art dictionary" with over 3,600 terms and definitions and articles on everything art-related, such as famous artists and their works, art techniques, art movements, etc.
Sanford & A Lifetime of Color: Study Art
<www.sanford-artedventures.com/study/study.html>
This website explains art concepts in a way that's very easy to understand. It also has fun little activities like a drag and drop face proportion Java game. This website is a good place to start your research of the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design.
Karen Jessett's Creating a Web Site <www.jessett.com>
A beautiful and very informative web design guide for beginners and experienced web designers. This website has wonderful information about usability, graphic design, HTML, Dreamweaver, CSS, DHTML, search engines, and other resources.
By Designers For Designers: Creative Fight Club <www.bd4d.com>
"By Designers for Designers (BD4D) has a creed that we are hard-core about: 'To facilitate a corporate-free, creative designer collective that will encourage and inspire new media designers around the world.'"
Inspirational Websites
Museum of Web Art <www.mowa.org>
This is a museum of amazing and sometimes pretty funny online art. Their mission statement says it all, "The Museum of Web Art was founded for the simple reason that excellence and innovation in this new, electronic medium must be made accessible to those who seek it, and displayed in an environment suited to its content." Don't miss the "North Gallery" exhibit entitled "Installations."
The Millennium Diary <webfolio.com/start.html>
Even though this work is almost 5 years old, it's still one of the most amazing examples of pure art on the web. GIGA created a new piece of interactive art every day for the entire year of 1999! A great example of art purely for art's sake...
Teknoel <www.teknoel.com>
Wow...
Access Project <www.accessproject.net>
"ACCESS is a public art installation that applies web, computer, sound and lighting technologies in which web users track individuals in public spaces with a unique robotic spotlight and acoustic beam system. The robotic spotlight automatically follows the tracked individuals while the acoustic beam projects audio that only they can hear. The tracked individuals do not know who is tracking them or why they are being tracked, nor are they aware of being the only persons among the public hearing the sound. The web users do not know that their actions trigger sound towards the target."
Jimmy McGrath Photo <www.jimmymcgrathphoto.com>
Jimmy McGrath is a professional photographer and this is a website for his business. The website is much more than just a commercial endeavor, however. The most impressive aspect is that he has taken each of the photographs in his portfolio and used it as inspiration for a fine art illustration.
communimage <www.communimage.ch/engl>
"communimage is a collaborative art project since 1999. Thousands of people have since then contributed to a growing sea of images. communimage is an attempt to entertain a visual global dialogue."
mytinygarden <www.mytinygarden.com>
Even if you are not into gardening or insects (I'm not), this is an incredible non-commercial website (art for art's sake!). Jay Dykes, who creates commercial websites for a living, created mytinygarden in his spare time. The layout and the photographs are beautiful and the interface is wonderful.
Jellyfever <www.jellyfever.com>
The "playroom" of Jelly Associates (a New York city graphic design studio). Jellyfever is the fine art outlet for a group of digital artists who are designers by day.
AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), San Diego Chapter <sandiego.aiga.org>
The website for the local chapter of the AIGA, a community of graphic artists whose mission it is to "advance excellence in graphic design as a discipline, profession, and cultural force."
Pratestation, Lentil vs. Maruto <www.prate.com>
This website was "built for the offf festival in Barcelona, Spain [and it] explores working with new textile assets, and placing them in a programmatic system."
Joshua Davis—New Media Artist <www.joshuadavis.com>
Joshua Davis is an artist and technologist from New York who produces private and public works of art both on the Web and off the Web. He is also an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.
Juxt Interactive—Web Development Company <www.juxtinteractive.com>
Juxt Interactive is the company that creates a lot of the really cool (Flash-heavy) websites out there. The neatest part of their own website is the "portfolio" section.
Flash deConstruction—Companion Website to Book by Juxt Interactive <www.juxtinteractive.com/deconstruction>
Once the site loads, go to the "Inspirations" section (which is s 4.0). Here you will find links to a bunch of really neat websites that have inspired the Juxt Interactive folks.
Enthrallogy—Pontiac Vibe <www.enthrallogy.com>
It sounds pretty commercial and cheesy, but it's actually pretty neat: "Pontiac selected a handful of world-class, award-winning designers to create a series of multimedia installations that emote the essence of Vibe."
Photoshop & ImageReady Resources
Adobe Evangelists Photoshop Tips & Techniques <www.adobeevangelists.com/photoshop>
Julieanne Kost, Daniel Brown, and Tim Cole are "Adobe Evangelists." They work for Adobe, are power-users of Adobe's software programs, and their job is to pass that knowledge on to us! Their Photoshop section has lots of really cool tips, recommendations for books and magazines to read, actions you can download, and lots of inspirational websites you can look at.
Dreamweaver Resources
Entheos: Website Design Tutorials by Rachna <www.entheosweb.com/website_design>
A collection of tutorials and tip-filled articles. There are some particularly helpful items in the Dreamweaver Tutorials & Tips section, such as how to do Image Maps in Dreamweaver.
Flash Resources
Sitepoint <www.sitepoint.com/subcat/95/flashcircle>
Sitepoint has wonderful information about Flash and incredible tutorials on everything from an "Introduction to ActionScript Animation in Flash" to how to "Build a Shoot-em-up Game in Flash MX."
Other Interesting Websites
Color Matters <www.colormatters.com/designart.html>
Not a very well designed site, but I include it because it has a lot of interesting information about color and design. It also has some strange information about color such as the fact that blue is an appetite suppressant.
Typography Museum <abc.planet-typography.com>
This website is a virtual museum of typography, showing examples of Classic, 20th Century, Modern, and "Miscellaneous" typefaces and giving historical data about each example.
Lorem Ipsum <www.lipsum.com>
"Lorem Ipsum" are the first 2 words of the standard text that designers use when they are laying out a page. It is also called "dummy" or "placeholder" text. This site will generate this industry standard dummy text for you in lengths that you specify and includes a fascinating history of the text.
Esperfonto <www.will-harris.com/esperfonto>
This is an interesting website for typography. The author, Will Harris, has created a searchable database of fonts to help you choose a typeface that is appropriate for your particular case.
SenseBox—Guide to Graphic Design Schools<www.sensebox.com>
SenseBox is a comprehensive guide to graphic design schools. They have direct links to more than 290 visual communications programs in the US and more than 140 internationally. The website covers art schools, university programs, design institutes, online education, and other forms of graphic design instruction.
