Mediameme

Ever thought about the interactive landscape in a literal sense?  Where the web site is more like a landscape painting you might see in a museum?

Check out UK electronica group Goldfrapp’s web site. Whether the home movie clips that play immediately are authentic or artificially created (much more likely the case), the fact that it takes up every pixel of the screen immediately grabs the visitors attention. The clips are terrible — deliberately so. The camera wobbles, the lighting is too dark, the film is overexposed at points, the screen is pixellating at points and the subject is self-absorbed in her own exploration. Which is precisely what makes it so watchable.

The navigation information is pushed to the bottom or upper left corner, leaving a clean, unobtrusive viewing experience. Goldfrapp, centered at the bottom of the frame looks more like a signature, reminding me of a true canvas brought to life with interactive components: video, color, music, text, and so on.

The site eloquently exemplifies the philosophy of Jakob Nielsen (another Brit and web design legend in my book, although not all share my opinion):  all designs work in three main ways: visceral, behavioral and reflective.  The visceral level is the way the site looks.  You can love it or hate it, but either reaction means the design is working.  On the behavioral level — actual use — the site also scores pretty well. Information is straight-forward and easy-to-find.  As for the reflective level — what does it say about the brand (or in this case the band)?

Speaking of indie bands & web sites, check out the artists on the Ghostly label. If you are a design geek like me, there is a marvelous variety of web site landscape inspiration.  And the music is great too.

<Hat tip to my buddy, Dan Sicko for the info on this hot indie label.>

What ARE they teaching kids these days?

I thought I’d start with the education parents pay the most cash for their offspring to attend: Ivy League schools.  Harvard Law School has an ‘ever-evolving’ course called The Web Difference with the key themes: socialization of knowledge, economics of peer production, web as medium, morality, citizenship and democracy. Any course that includes required reading from Courtney Love, Hobbes and Shakespearean Sonnets on Wikipedia is worth taking a look at their syllabus which, in this case, is a blog.

Brown offers a digital Art course with a great summary line: What would Andy Warhol’s Facebook page look like? What would John Cage have done with an iPod? The course is production-oriented, examining art and digital technology. Judging by their recent Curator project, these young people are ones to watch as future thought leaders and artists.

UC Berkeley is offering a well-designed sociology class on virtual communities being taught by Howard Rheingold (who, for the Boomers in the house is the equivalent of a 20th Century American Literature being taught by Ernest Hemingway). The course is designed for active learning. The students are required to blog, comment and post on a secured wiki in addition to reading the theories and engage in discussion.

My degree is in film & media studies, so I wanted to see how much the curriculum has evolved with web 2.0. Another Ca-school, The University of San Francisco has an honors-level seminar called Digital Literacy being facilitated by David Silver, who is half of the partnership behind The September Project, a grass-roots initiative designed to interconnect libraries around the world. Aside from Silver’s blog format that is very user-friendly, I liked that he required a Flickr Pro account as part of the course resources. It made me realize how much value is generated from a Flickr Pro account versus buying <another useless> textbook that will be out-of-date the minute it is published.

Universities are the ultimate curators of knowledge.  Fascinating to contemplate what effect this will have on the workplace as these graduates flood the market in the coming years.  More to come on this important series.

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