writing » net notables
Online ad-meisters at Doubleclick have fashioned a very useful jump station — an admirable collection of advertising resources, including links to trade organizations, demographic surveys, and traffic and advertising-dollar projections. A very useful compendium for anyone involved in online marketing.
Career tips! People are always wondering if they're being paid enough, or at least if they're earning industry standard; in the design field particularly, there is a wide discrepancy in compensation for similar positions.
While it is illegal for freelancers to get together and discuss rates (collusion), they are often at a loss to figure out a dollar value for their work. Here are three sites that can provide some fiscal context for your next job interview or project pitch:
- www.zdnet.com/enterprise/salary-zone/index.html
- www.ioma.com/nls/9906/rss.shtml
- www.sourceservices.com/survey.html
Atlas magazine is a tour-de-force labor-of-love Web
site designed by Atlas Web Design out of San Francisco, and it is a rarity on the Web: a completely non-commercial magazine site that has both strong content and very clever design.
Currently in its sixth issue, this eclectic creation combines witty and irreverent copy with stunning visuals and leading-edge Web design technologies. The site is one of only three sites to be honoured with a permanent place in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The magazine makes liberal use of DHTML, the more robust cousin of HTML (the “D” is for dynamic), to construct pages that have elements flying around, and mouseover events that pop up interesting surprises as you tour the pages. Scripting languages are used to create animations and trigger events; the pages constantly shimmy and shift before your eyes, as whimsical interface elements beckon a mouse click, and new windows open to reveal new avenues of discovery.
There is not much logic to the interface, and the content may be a bit arty for some, but this is a site that encourages viewers to explore. It abounds with strong illustration and excellent photography — see a photo essay on the New York underground, or take a tour with the 3D Buddha Avatar, or read a travelogue of Asia (top).
On the front page there is a little spaceship that keeps crossing the screen (above right) from left to right; if you're fast enough you can click on it and be sent to a handpicked, Atlas-approved site somewhere else on the Web. It is this sense of fun that makes this site a great way to while away a summer storm. All in all, a five-star bookmark.
Net Notables appears several times a year in Applied Arts, Canada's premiere graphic design magazine
