Three web diagrams to enjoy
From the depths of my bookmarks
Back to three things to enjoy this week. Today it is about websites that I’ve bookmarked because they remind me of diagrams, because they are conceptually related, because they look pretty cool or all of the above.
1 - Malavika in motion
These type of sites were very popular a few years ago, and I consequently saved a bunch of them but this one stands out to me because of the color scheme, the background grid – I love a grid – and the small node and its connections on each of the articles.
2 - A bit of a grid, Annoying Toolkit
According to a poorly translation of their info page, Annoying Toolkit is the result of a design and hand coding sites using only HTML, CSS and JS course at HAW Hamburg in 2023. A bit of a grid is one of the sites produced, the diagram aspect of this one is the timeline at the bottom and some of the graphics. It also uses one of my favorite color combinations, red over white, and lots of overlapping cool textures. Makes me think about the almost endless possibilities on the web and how it is so important to create spaces to experiment and do things.
The site was inspired by the piece DOES IT MAKE SENSE? by designer and artist April Greiman and her early experimental work with bitmaps and raster graphics. At the time, this piece was considered an assault to the field of graphic design because she used a Mac computer to produce it. Shocking. Her work is clever and captivating, and her way of thinking and talking about it is extremely motivating, at the core there is the notion that technology is a way to push design forward. A compelling thought for people like me, that design in technology with technology for technology.
I had this link on my bookmarks for a long time and only through writing this newsletter I ended up going through the whole website and falling into a rabbit hole of things that are so relevant to my current work. Tiny praise to writing continuing to prove to be a really good idea. Some links from that rabbit hole: an article from eye on design, a great recording of Greiman talking about her work in 1996, a site with a beginners guide to bitmap, a book about rastering (in German) a list of various links and videos from the sources page on A bit of a grid.
3 - Otto Resource
Basically an online store, but also a site about an exhibition and a collaboration between Otto Resource and Grocery in Copenhagen. They’re using diagrams and animations as a way to explain specific things about their garments, integrating meaning, form and utility into a web experience. They’re also using one of my favorite diagrams in their about page, the whole site is full of beautiful details.
Otto stands for Open Tools for Technical Observartion, and Otto resource is a digital archive of clothes, a research site, and a tool for design discovery, and using diagrams, they map each of the garments into a neat 2x2 of innovation - foundation and needs - values. There are also tabs for materials and treatments, they talk about the story of each of them, giving context into each of the pieces. Another really cool place to fall in a rabbit hole. Here are some more links about it: an interview and, their instagram.
This is also the inaugural edition of a new branding for the newsletter. The branding, as the newsletter, is meant to change as much as possible, to be open, experimental, ephemeral and fun. This iteration is based on the idea of transparency and tracing paper, a concept I’ve been exploring and researching lately, and will be a part of future explorations for my personal work, maybe a part of it will come to this newsletter as well.
Thanks for reading, as always, comments are open and I would love to see some of your bookmarks.
Any chance to see and read about April Greiman’s work is time well spent.
The Malavika site sparks with so much handmade web energy and care.
Loved this!!