Sneak peek: Custom sneaker shop, text-as-art and other wows from the Webbys
A sneak peek of my next column:
Customized athletic gear, random awesomeness, a twist on type and elegant home page design highlight today’s look at Webby Award winners. All of the sites featured here won both the People’s Voice and Webby Award honors in the 13th annual competition — one of the top international competitions for work on the World Wide Web.
Retail category:
*NIKEiD
(www.nikeid.com)
The site that lets customers design one-of-a-kind footwear and other athletic gear has been around several years, but the revamped version takes customization to the top of the mountain. The customer becomes cobbler with a seemingly endless supply of materials and colors, which results in works of fashion art.
There’s a gallery of creations made by other designing shoppers, and everything is grouped by colors. Even if you’re not in the market for a pair of tennies or a new backpack or soccer ball, I encourage you to spend some time here. Don’t miss the video that summarizes the features of the award-winning site: (http://tinyurl.com/cwek4h).
Blog - Culture/Personal category:
*1,000 Awesome Things
(www.1000awesomethings.com)
I guarantee you’ll find things on this list that will have you nodding in agreement or marvelling at the logic behind seeing the beauty in life’s simple, underappreciated things.
How can you argue with No. 947, “Neighbors with pools”? Awesome, indeed. The list also includes: No. 994, “Waiters and waitresses who bring free refills without asking”; No. 769, “When the thing you were going to buy is already on sale”; and No. 964, “The day when you first realize you can drive.”
It appears the site shows only 250 items at a time, but there are many, many more suggestions for additions to the list in the reader comments.
My addition: Fun sites like this one.
Typography category:
*Wordle
(www.wordle.net)
Paste a text block into the window, click the submit button and wait about 20 seconds to see your creation. I took a couple of paragraphs from a blog post on the Bing search engine and was delivered an artsy presentation of the key words. I posted it on one of my Bing posts:
(http://tinyurl.com/pw2vyh)
Home/Welcome page category:
*adidas
((www.adidas.com)
A patchwork of about 20 images from the world of sport invite the visitor to learn more. Mousing over the gallery puts the palette into motion, with link-filled info boxes sliding into place.
There’s also standard text navigation to key areas of the site for those who know what they came for.
Share your Internet story with me at agibes@reviewjournal.com.
TIP OF THE WEEK
Webby Lifetime Achievement Award
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
(http://tinyurl.com/ob8cf6)
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, widely accepted as one of the innovators of the World Wide Web and creator of the hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) language that makes the Internet work, will be honored during the 13th Annual Webby Awards Celebration June 8, in New York City.
For more on Lee, check this site: (www.w3.org/people/Berners-Lee)
