Welcome to this week’s edition of our Friday Quality Linkage column. Please enjoy this week’s collection of interesting and entertaining links. Brew a fresh cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax.
Featured Links
The History of Web Design »
Rob Ford, who founded the Favourite Website Awards (FWA) in 2000, has an upcoming book called Web Design. The Evolution of the Digital World 1990–Today, releasing on October 2nd, 2019:
This comprehensive visual history gathers 21 chapters that detail, for every year since 1998, the best websites and examples of hardware used at the time, and explore how user experience, usability, and technological milestones have influenced the development of the internet we use today. Year-by-year factsheets and smart Google insights orient the reader through major developments across such categories as world news headlines, highest grossing films, new soft and hardware, greatest website traffic, and many more.
He and the FWA team worked with the Italian design agency Adoratorio to create this awesome teaser/promo site for the book. Matt Muir described it well in the July 19th, 2019 edition of his Imperica newsletter:
An excellent site, created as a promo for the coffee-table book of the same name, which takes you back through 30 years of website design trends and offers a nice window into how incredibly shonky everything online was in the early-00s (although, on the plus side, visible area on an average webpage was more than 30% and you didn’t have to accept f****** cookies all over the f****** places, so maybe things were better then after all). There’s something pleasingly time-capsuleish about this, and you’ll be reminded of some web hits from yesteryear like [The Wilderness Downtown](http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com /) (or at least you will if you’re like me and have spent far too much time over the past 20 years staring at a screen in the hope that it will make you feel marginally better (it won’t)).
Photo: Leo Sorel, Quartz
Milton Glaser Spent His 90th Birthday Doing What He Loves Most: Working »
On the subject of design, Anne Quito of Quartz interviewed famed graphic designer Milton Glaser on his 90th birthday back in June — an age when most would’ve long chosen to enjoy retirement while he instead continues making us all look like unproductive swine:
There is no shortage of projects in Glaser’s inbox. He is currently working on a series of portraits for a forthcoming exhibition about William Shakespeare and experimenting with new channels for selling his posters and fine art prints. He still fields requests for logos, posters, and illustrations from various clients around the world.
[…]
“Not having anything to do sounds terrible,” Glaser says. “I fear that more than anything else. It’s greater than the fear of death.”
Black Pumas — “Colors” (Official Live Session) »
In today’s example of “Sometimes the YouTube Algorithm is…Good”: I, along with a lot of other people (according to the comments), recently got introduced to Black Pumas, an Austin-based group described as a “beat-heavy psychedelic soul project anchored by vocalist Eric Burton and guitarist Adrian Quesada.”
I was so mesmerized by this performance I immediately sought out their shockingly good eponymous debut album [Apple Music / Spotify / Amazon], which I’m jamming to as I write this. Fantastic, groovy stuff if you’re into old-school soul and funk. Don’t sleep on this one.
+ Need something a little heavier to throw on this weekend? As I tweeted yesterday, the entire discography of Tool was recently put up on Apple Music and Spotify for your streaming pleasure.
+ What’s that? You say you need even more Tool content? I’ve got you, friend. Check out Danny Carey surprise-guesting as the drummer for a kids’ rock band. Look how happy (not to mention crazy talented) he is! Similarly, there’s this performance of “Lateralus” by students at the School of Rock. And of course, you can’t miss Brass Against’s fantastic series of Tool covers.
“Bzzz” — A Tap Dance + Beatboxing Collab by Caleb Teicher and Co. »
Here’s a cool thing to brighten up your weekend: One minute of brisk tap of tap dance that starts with tap choreographer Caleb Teicher and beatboxer Chris Celiz and gradually starts including other dancers from Teicher’s retinue.
The video was filmed by Mohamed Sadek as part of the New York Times’ #SpeakingInDance series. The story behind the sequence is shared here:
Caleb Teicher: “It starts with Chris and me finding our joint groove, our joint momentum. And then when other dancers join me, it’s about playing with rhythmic and movement variations and it’s about that jam circle feeling. It’s sort of the way that jazz bands function together: You’re all playing the music together, but there’s space for people to do their own thing.”
Miscellaneous Links
[Video:] Lisbon-based video editor Gugga Leunnam has gained something of an internet fandom for his “Ride Through the MCU Action” video series, each of which mashes together action scenes from various Marvel films in seamless fashion. His recent Vol. 3 video is a masterpiece of editing:
It’s unreal how well he makes those transitions work 😯
On Reddit, he explains: “This one took me almost 4 months to make. Every time I worked on Vol. 3, I was running out of transitions. I needed to look further into the 22-movie collection of the MCU. It took so long that Captain Marvel and Endgame came out on Blu-Ray.”
My mind was broken watching these seemingly impossible geometric sculptures by artist John Edmark. I assume some kind of strobe light is in effect here, but I still can’t help but be transfixed in wonder.
Also via Colossal comes UK artist Jason Anderson’s abstract, pixel-like cityscape paintings. Strange how there’s no specific form to these and yet your mind can absolutely make out what they’re supposed to be.
A Bunch of Neat Stuff We’ve Published Recently
This week’s guide: “Great Carabiners for Your EDC”
Last week’s guide: “Everyday Style: Navy & Leather”
- Explore a beautiful, vast, and ruined world riddled with dangers and lost technologies: Hyper Light Drifter: Special Edition for iOS
- Charge all your devices fast and in one place, without the cord clutter: ElevationLab FamilyCharger
- Fits a full DSLR kit + 13″ laptop, and will age beautifully: The Monterey Backpack by ONA
- High-end espresso machine designed for small living spaces: Rocket Milano’s “Appartamento” Home Espresso Machine
- Never carry stove fuel on the trail again: Vargo Titanium Hexagon Wood Stove
- Nearly as good as the Baratza Encore for $40 less: OXO Brew Conical Burr Coffee Grinder
- Costs a pretty penny, but it’ll likely be the last trash can you ever buy: Simplehuman 10-Gallon Stainless Steel Trash Can
- Now available for standalone purchase: The Lanier A5 Pouch by Nock Co.
Got any suggestions for articles, videos, stories, photographs, and any other links you think we should be posting in our weekly Quality Linkage? Please do let us know on Twitter.