Alex: http://www.ericmyer.com/stereotypes.htm

From what I remember, my dad had sent me this link quite a while back. It seems to be a basic little introduction into this Eric Myer guy's Photography Company, but it was this particular part of the site that got my attention. I really think the design here speaks for itself. There are also links for a random selection and a slide show of random selections. I think the project itself says something extremely interesting about the nature of human differences.

Some of the text on the rest of the site may be a bit hard to read, and really, there doesn't seem to be all that much content. However, I feel that this project alone is worth taking at least a couple minutes to have a look, and mess around a bit.

Week 3
Sept. 3

Jeff: http://www.buddyhead.com/

Honest, hip, angry, and often hilarious, buddyhead.com seeks to show the rest of the world what exactly cool is. you may want ot start by reading the sites authors, aaron north and travis keller, view on music today. or you can read the features sections which in cludes some very funny mock interviews with limp bizkit's fred durst and slayer. be sure to check out the gossip section for some fresh gossip, although it may not be true, it's still hilarious.

LeeAnn: http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net

Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club and several other fantastic novels. I love this website because it is very edgy and in-your-face with impressive graphics and layout design. Even if you're not a fan of Palahniuk's work, I think you still might be able to appreciate the design of this website. The use of rollover links is especially useful on this page due to the large amount of topics to explore. I also really like how each page has a unique top image and layout color, and how this doesn't disrupt the flow of the page.

If you go to the section "Fan" and follow it to "The Cult", there are links to academic papers that fans have written about Palahniuk's books. I found these to be very interesting and consuming of a lot of my time!

Brandon: www.pearljam.com
 
Really it's nothing more then an informative site about the band, Pearl Jam.  But there is a lot to this site.  Every page is uniquely crafted, and its neat cause everything on every page moves, if only a little bit.  It has kind of a cryptic feel to the design, and the title page even plays music.  Each page is worth checking out, but make sure to look at the timeline, which is especially cool.

West Coast Choppers http://www.westcoastchoppers.com/
I really like the design of the site. I am a motorcycle fan, and a fan of the tv show on which they are featured, so I may be biased. However, I think that the design is unique in how it is customized, yet still simple and easy to use because it follows a simple layout. The other thing I like about this site is it's link to Chopper Dogs http://www.chopperdogs.com.
Chopper Dogs is essentially the same content as West Coast Choppers, but in a more complex design. The galleries page is interesting, I like the way they have the pictures scrolling.
Basically these two sites show a lot of good motorcycle pictures and video clips. I personally like the design of the two sites and have fun scrolling through the clips and checking up the latest on Monster Garage.

Amy

www.dragcity.com

Well, I was originally going to use www.ubu.com as my cool site of the week; I did my web critique on this site as well. However, Gabriel Gudding decided to share this site with the listserve, thus making me look like a copy-catting scheister if I still use it. I still recommend checking it out, though. My new cool site is www.dragcity.com. This is the official homepage to Drag City Records, in my opinion Chicago's coolest and smartest current record label. This label houses such bands/artists as (smog), Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Edith Frost, Flying Saucer Attack, Royal Trux, and a slew of others. I really like the layout of this site. It is visually appealing, "cool," and user-friendly all at once. This site links to a few other indie labels (all distributed by Drag City); sells books, shirts, music, posters, etc.; and keeps all interested parties posted as to what's up with all the Drag City bands (like the fact that the new U.S. Maple album came out yesterday--which you should all go buy). I like the layout, the navigability, and the content of the site. It's cool!

Thanks. See you in class.

Laine

www.balthaser.com
This website pretty much wows me. I didn't really know that this kind of thing was possible yet on the web. This site seems to me to be especially interesting in light of some of the articles we've been reading lately for class. It really capitalizes on the web's ability to be both exciting (in visual and auditory ways) and interactive. In fact, it reminds me a little bit of the Burroughs film that Laine brought to class. However, this also brings up my single critique of the site. They claim that the future of the net is to make it more like TV. And I'll confess I find the flashiness of it all very exciting. However, we do actually have T.V., so why would we need the net to be like TV? TV is fun, in its way--I'm a big fan, but it's not interactive. And just as the film failed to really demonstrate Burroughs cut and paste method because of the genre's inability to actually be random more than a single time (you can record a happening, but after that, it's frozen), so this website robs the viewer of any decisions other than "skip" "fastforward" and "rewind." So making the web more FLASH-y seems to actually decrease it's ability to be interactive and different for different users and different times, which I think is one of the primary draws of the net. That said, I think that in the future we will see sites that use both the exciting technology of Balthaser and the interactiveness of more common HTML sites.
 
www.thegoodhuegallery.com
 I picked this site because it's just really cool, apropos the "cool site of the week." There's not much text, just visuals, so as to really give you that "in the gallery" kind of feeling. They do make nice use of those little yellow explanation windows that magically appear when your mouse hovers over a link (I have no idea what these are called), to clarify any confusion viewers may have with navigation. Not that I think confusion will really be a problem, since the site so closely mirrors the actual gallery experience--it you want to move into a room, you click on it. If you want to look at a painting, you click on it. It's pretty basic. But I think also it's a pretty clever way to display some fascinating works of art.

Sheila

http://www.ineradicablestain.com
It's the website of Shelley Jackson, who has written traditional texts (her book of short stories, The Melancholy of Anatomy) and hypertexts, including Patchwork Girl. I think this site is well designed, pretty consistent, and the content is great. Really funny. You can visit My Body, a hypertext, or The Doll Games, which is a hilarious collection of texts and photos held together under a frame narrative.

Lori

http://www.geocities.com/trampingground/Tramping.html
It doesn't have much contents, but I think it's kind of cool. The subject is cryptic--which, truely or falsely, is believed to be cool; together with the visual effect and music, it certainly has a striking effect. Although the site doesn't allow for much interation, the navigation makes you feel so, which I guess, account for why unlike many flash pages, it loads much quicker. And that's another way I choose to post this site--although there are hundreds of cool design sites, many of them takes forever long to load using cables, I can't imagine anyone using dial up coonection would ever have the chance or patience to look at them.

Han

I guess there are three sites in which I would like to look at today. All three are music sites and have many things in common. These are the sites for three of my favorite bands: Chevelle, Korn and Godsmack. I was researching sites for links on my identity project and I noticed how similar many of the music sites were, so I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the similarities. Other than that, the audience for each of the sites are the band's fans, they each are flash sites that play music, but all load fairly quickly, which surprised me. Have your speakers on and lets take a look.
http://www.chevelleinc.com
http://www.korntv.com
http://www.godsmack.com
Cassie