02.27.09
webpick of the week
Art/Creative, Self-Promotion
This educational resource pays respect to the life, work and 60-year-long career of Paul Rand, whose influence is incomparable and whose teachings are timeless.
When the project first began, there were no “single-source” references to Rand or his work, anywhere on the Web. Lewandowski’s goal is to build as complete an archive of his work as possible and to present Rand’s thoughts and theories for future generations.
The site is designed simply to hold the work. Like a museum, it houses extensive gallery collections of Rand’s work—the more usual pieces as well as a number of seldom-published works—as well as articles and interviews. A book section is particularly extensive with full articles and images of the original publications, including a 1947 Graphis #18.
• The site was launched after two years of on-and-off, during their spare time, work by Dan Lewandowski and developer Josh Allen.
• Since the initial framework was established, Lewandowski has been handling site maintenance. The lack of a CMS allows him to do everything by hand. While a bit of a drawback in terms of consistency and speed, it gives him complete control—repetitive components like navigation, footer and sidebar content is done server-side—over content changes.
• HTML, CSS, some AJAX/Java for the Lightwindow effects, home page fading image and news bar. The whole site uses server-side includes—hence the .shtml extension for all pages.
• The home page animation works on an iPhone—which doesn't yet support Flash.
• Since launch, it's received almost 300,000 visitors.
www.scribblestudios.com