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Issue 7   |   January 2000
         Really COOL | MULTIMEDIA | ELVIS | TELL a friend

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PREVIOUS
Our new look... Goodbye, AOL... Tell your friends... Better critiques...
[Dec. 1999]

What I know about you... Teaching computer-based media... NY Minute wins Best of Show... Nudes in Parma
[Nov. 1999]

Graffiti & hip-hop... More student involvement = better critiques... Photoshop 5.5 vs. Fireworks 2
[Oct. 1999]

Swiss Design Quiz... Barcelona... AIGA / NASAD briefing paper... Response to Upgrade Junkies, Pt. 1
[Sept. 1999]

Upgrade junkies,
Part 1.

[Aug. 1999]

Report from International Design Conference at Aspen
[July 1999]

"Interactive Design" or "New Media?"
[July 1999]

If no author name is show, article is written by Al Wasco, author of this website.

Join in the conversation! Please send your comments on any article and/or suggestions for future articles by clicking on the [Email] link on any page.

 

     

 
...it's amazing what a difference it makes
Of course I'd read articles saying that getting your website listed in the Yahoo! directory was important, but I didn't realize just how important until the middle of December. It took two tries, with two different submissions in different categories, but finally Interactive Design Forum made the big leap: from obscurity to a place on the map of the Internet that's used for something like 80% of searches.

The day that we first appeared under Arts>Design Arts>Graphic Design>Magazines our visitor count shot up from its daily average of 9 to 139 unique visits! It's now settling down to 30-40 a day.

Welcome, all you Yahoo! searchers. Hope you enjoy your visit.

Find what you need
Try the quick search box you see at the top of the column at left to search Interactive Design Forum. Type in the word(s) or phrase(s) you're looking for and you'll get the results fast. To find a phrase, enclose it in "quotes."

Webmasters: the search engine, provided by Atomz.com, is not only fast, it's free and doesn't annoy your visitors by splashing a banner ad across the page. There's a Atomz logo that appears on the results page, but otherwise you can customize it to look like the rest of your site. A great service; I highly recommend it.

It's, well, like really cool
On December 15th we were named as the CoolStop Best of the Cool site of the day. Web awards are a dime a dozen, so it's good to take these with a grain of salt. But if you're known by the company you keep, we're happy to be in the CoolStop list. It's a great, eclectic collection of websites worth checking out.

Multimedia and the Web
Although I think the Internet is incredibly exciting as a communication medium that reaches literally around the globe, its ability
to deliver sound and movement and complex interaction leave a lot to be desired. This will change over the next few years, but for now some of the best examples of interactive art and design are on CD-ROM.

I also have to admit to a great love for creating interactive projects using Macromedia Director, a software tool that allows you to create virtually any kind of interaction you can dream up. Maybe if I were a programmer I could make the same things happen on a website, but I think not.

Read this month's article about interactive art on CD-ROM, don't miss mini-reviews of two of the best I've found, and find out where to buy them.

Your tax dollars at work
The documents and graphics available at the National Archives website (listed in this month's BEST OF section) are fascinating. I could hardly tear myself away once I started browsing (and downloading) high-resolution scans from our nation's past.

It's like rummaging through the attic. Old treasures (first draft of the Declaration of Independence), mementos of relationships you'd like to forget (Elvis' handwritten letter to Nixon offering to become a narc for the FBI), photos, artwork, documents.

Since our tax money paid for it, most of the images are copyright-free. A marvelous resource that I learned about on a bulletin board for members of UCDA (University and College Designers Association).

Tell a friend or colleague
It's easy to tell your friends about Interactive Design Forum: send their email address(es) to feedback@awdsgn.com and we'll add them to our email list for a monthly update message. Or just click on the Recommend-It icon at left to generate an automatic email message right now.

 

- Al Wasco 1/6/99

 

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