week 1

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the web's grain by frank chimero

The article by Frank Chimero allowed me to look at the materiality of the web in a different way from how I had previously. I have often thought of the material nature of the web as something that is a box, because it was how I learned it last semester. I think of it as a series of elements and objects, arranged by more objects, all tied together through the images and words put on the page.

The article emphasized the web and individual websites as being something that is just a singular page or rectangle. With the ever expanding nature of devices and technology, things like scrolling mean that we have to think of the web as something that has more about individual elements, not a specific arrangement of elements.

While we do have to think about how the elements are arranged, the example of Kasper Laigaard creating a design where the box is not drawn until it the design has been made is a prime example of this. The constraints of the elements, the rectangular box, is not the first thing to think about, but what it is that you are using to create inside of the box.

The material nature of the web is not every single webpage that exists or every single picture, but the elements that we use to organize and create it. I now think of the web as something closer to what is discussed in "The Web's Grain." The materiality the web gets is from all of its parts, just like a construction project. We cannot ignore the elements that are creating what we look at just because it looks pretty.

The example of the Mac Pro website emphasizes a part of the nature of the materials that make up the web that are easy to ignore. While the website can do all sorts of cool things with popup information and animations, the page does, as the article mentions, goes against what the natural way of the web is. While yes, the web is something that does not have to follow rules of grids and rectangles, when people are designing purely for design and not for web, and the elements and material that make up the web are ignored, we lose the web.

The web is still able to be designed dynamically, with pieces like the works by David Hockney being translatable to the web. I think that the idea of seamlessness is something that is often encouraged in the new age of thin phones. But seamless design does not have to be something that means lots of complex coding that loses basic elements. The site for the article is a good example of the verticality the article discusses as well. Sites can still be designed in a vertical nature that provides interesting elements and a unique design that is interesting to viewers.

*i apologize for the rambling nature of this reading response i have a lot of thoughts about this and am having trouble organizing them effectively*
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