Part One:
I particularly liked the work done by Caelan Navarrete, and the artists that she reviewed on her blog. There’s a lot of depth that she looks for in artwork both her own and from others that I can empathize with. The experimentation that Rachel Broussard puts into her work was also really interesting to see, particularly her “human presence without human form” project.
I really liked Shelby Savage’s sort of design style, because that’s a style that I feel like I produce much of the time, or think in when I’m trying to design in my head on the go. Her type work especially was pretty interesting, because of the certain ways that she thought about the type before and during the actual making of it. It’s always interesting to see how other people would design something, versus how I myself would. Paul Young’s design work is also really interesting; the floral patterns with the gradation in the background is something that I’ve never thought of, and the idea of putting together a surrealist book based on one’s dreams is a really cool idea. The composition and finality of his work is really impressive and professional-looking.
Crissy Smith and Juliana Isabel are two very different photographers with really good concepts behind each of them. The portrait style that Crissy Smith exhibits really has the air of deep thought on how the pictures ought to be portrayed, but there are several spontaneous photos among her collections that I think are really engaging, just because they were so spontaneous, like the birds flying in Ireland, or the sudden snow. Juliana’s compositions are completely different, and interesting in a totally different way; at first they were really confusing to me, but as I looked at them more and more I began to like them better. The comparison of materials in each photograph, and the actual composition and contrast between all of them made for some really interesting pictures, almost like looking at optical illusions.
Part Two:
http://www.axentwear.com/
This is a pretty basic website that advertises a particular type of headphones that I’ve admired for a long time, and the whole feel of the site has always appealed to me. The dark background makes all of the pictures stand out even more than they already did. The entire design is fairly simple, and is extremely easy to navigate.
https://www.tumblr.com/
This is a really well known website, and I personally really like its whole design. It’s fairly simple when one looks at the overall structure of the webpages; the complexity comes from the individual bloggers themselves, and the uniqueness of every page is what makes tumblr so fun! Also, the setup is really easy to follow, and it’s not hard at all to make every single post pretty.
http://www.starbucks.com/
This website also has a really easy setup that can be navigated pretty easily, and the things that I like the most about it are the color schemes and the graphics. There’s a lot of space between the pictures and the text, which keeps it simple, and easy on the eyes. I also chose this site because of the layered format; every new idea is kept within its horizontal section that separates but also combines into a really appealing layered cake.
http://www.deviantart.com/
The cool thing about Deviantart is the layers and layers of thumbnails that make up the different links around this huge database of artwork. While at first the number may seem rather chaotic, when one looks closer, they are able to see the method in the madness. If one ignores the thumbnails entirely, the setup for the rest of the page is really rather simple, and so is fairly easy to navigate. There’s so many resources for artists of all different kinds, and literally thousands of communities that all come together around one focal point that they all share. The idea of all this sharing and collaborating and teaching of art in this setup is definitely the thing that appeals to much to me from this website.