A few weeks ago I posted about design collaboration & Layers Tennis and how it would be fun to get something going here locally. Well, thankfully we have 4 designers from Indianapolis who want to participate!

This is a little introduction… then each week we will post an update with the design volleys. If you are still confused, the video below should give you a clearer picture of what to expect. (It’s a compilation video of the entire Exhibition Season of Layer Tennis edited down to just 130 seconds.

I asked each designer to give me a bio introducing themselves to give a bit of background. We’ll be posting each of our volley’s up once a week and we’ll do a poll to find out who’s pixels will reign supreme.

The image below was given (a higher res version of course) to the first designer as the starting point. I can’t wait to get started!

The image was taken in the IMA's 100 Acres Art and Nature Park

Designer bios after the jump!  Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a designer with geek cred (a pair of specs, a personal website/blog, and an iPhone/iPad… example), you probably already know about the innovation taking place across the design community commonly referred to as “Layer Tennis“. Kyle blogged a bit about it in this post.

Basically what happens is this: a designer sends another designer an image that might have graphic design elements. The receiving designer then adds his/her flair and sends it back. This process repeats.

Collaborating with people you never will meet face to face is extremely easy now thanks to the internet. Not to mention, it is extremely green since you can do it from your own living room. I’ve compiled a little list of good design collaboration projects and websites that are following that same Layer Tennis model.

DesignSwap – DesignSwap’s sole purpose is to promote collaborations between designers by saying one simple thing – I design on your site, you design on mine.

Layer Tennis – Ten designers in ten cities, fifteen minutes at a time. Follow @LayerTennis on Twitter.

Dribbble – Rebounds: Respond with a follow-up of your own. Iterate and play off the shots of others.

Fark – One of the first sites to do this… and a Photoshop design contest is always in session.

I can has cheez burger? – I can’t think of a better way to waste time and collaborate creatively with others at the same time!

I’ve never taken place in a design battle, but I would jump at the chance if anybody out there in museum/design land wants to serve me. So… who wants to step into my cipher?

This edition of “Geeking Out” features two new art sites with a social media theme.

The first site is “Dribbble – What are you working on?”. I think of this website as a visual version of Twitter. It allows designers to showcase the latest version of what they are working on in “120,000 pixels or less”.

I’m so glad this site exists! The best thing about it is you can only become a contributing member if you are invited, or “drafted” as they say, by someone who is already a member, also known as a “player”. The branding is a play off of basketball and I think it works. The fact that the basketball is pink is perfect. It should help keep the jocks from getting confused.

Anyways, this site is an amazing community because it is curated by it’s members. Players can start design contests (example here), share work, get and give feedback, and all of the other things you’d expect to find on a social site. Good luck getting drafted!

BetweenCreation is a social network that seeks to promote emerging art worldwide. This is another great social networking site for artists and designers. Anybody can sign up!

Unlike Dribbble, this website will let you upload larger images. I like the “related artwork” sidebar feature which provides a pleasant way to browse through the artwork on the site. Also, you can post and share art events easily.

I’m going to attempt to do this as a reoccurring theme and see how it goes. Basically “Geeking Out on Art” will be a review/news of the latest innovative technology applications to the art world that I stumble across. If you have something you you think I should check out and write about, shoot me a tweet!!

This week I wanted to talk about the iPhone app “Is This Art?“.

Made with love in the STEEL City, this app is collaborative endeavor produced by the Pittsburgh-based artists and developers at Deeplocal and the Mattress Factory. Extra-special assistance was lent by C-Monster and WNYC in New York. This project was inspired by a tweet from Nina K. Simon.

First, I think this is a great collaboration of local Pittsburgh artists and organizations to make something for the whole art community. And the best part is that it’s free of course! If you have an iphone, simply fire up the app and take a photo of an object you want to check out to see if it is art… or not art.

Clearly this is an epic question that is nearly impossible to answer, but I love the humor the collaborators have injected into the app. From what I’ve seen, the results are actually pretty accurate! Also, it’s nice to have the content users are submitting added to the website on the fly if the app user chooses to do so. I’m a big fan of the super simple app interface. A job well done indeed to all those involved!

More Info: http://isthisart.org/

I’m not talking about our location, but the method we used to lay out our new website.

A trending choice for web designers is to use a grid layout system as a way to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions. We based ours on a design with the width of 960px because our most common visitor’s screen resolution is still hovering at 1024 x 768 (according to Google Analyitics). Our grid system of choice is the ever easy to use and understand 960 Grid System. We chose the 12 column layout.

IMA Homepage with 960.gs grid layout overlay

 Read the rest of this entry »