For those who love web design galleries, here’s one of my recent favorites: Drawar.com

The website run by Paul Scrivens (of 9rules fame) features design articles and a carefuly curated gallery. A nice change from the usual “top n posts” we’re tired of seeing, and with a focus on community with news and forums. Enjoy.

If there’s one place where creativity excels is on a blank canvas. You “just” have to figure out what to make of it.

Fashion brand Land’s End is here to help with a new website developed by EVB, taking full advantage of Facebook, Twitter and Flickr to help you unleash creativity. Altough they should have used a password anti-pattern with Twitter like OAuth (there’s no way i’m sticking my Twitter password on a brand website) the Facebook Connect showed me just how my friends are the new paintbrush.

Oh, and they sell clothes too.

And just in case you didn’t notice the writing on my painting, Portugal’s main Online Advertising Award is up for voting at http://premios.sapo.pt/.

Land’s End is sponsoring this year the Big Boston Warm-Up, an effort to make the season warmer for the homeless people in the Boston area. Collecting one coat at a time (donated at Sears), but also setting up a beautiful website, developed by Firstborn NYC.

The infographic rich website also informs about the installation at Boylston Plaza with 738 figures waiting for a warm red heart, meaning that 10 people have donated coats for each figure.

Finally, do check the also special and personalized video after the jump.

Source: @brianjeremy

Cross-posted at Osocio.org

The fine crew at Odopod are spoiling me with good stuff, as if Odosketch wasn’t enough.
Yesterday, i found via @lilmissjen, former colleague and now promising blogger, that Odopod and the NYC think tank Undercurrent (Hi Mike and Bud) launched a new site for DonQ, a six generation Puerto Rican distilled rum.

So what’s so special about rum? Well, of course one of the best reasons a guy would care about it instead of plain old beer are THE LADIES.

At DonQ’s Lady Data, one can find the how the female mind works:

• Which way does the toilet paper go?
• Do i open the doors, or does she?
• Could you date a guy if you didn’t really like his mother?
• What’s the most important thing a guy should be reading?

(and dozens of other questions related to sex, style, success, night-life, mr. manners, wordly wise and dude 101).

It’s like the holy grail of the bachelors (or data porn for the metrosexual in you). And now i know i don’t have a chance with Jen, as she’s not much into bald guys.

Have a peek into the profiles, filter by criteria, get to know the answers and suggest your topic. Add to that integration with Foursquare, smart presences on Facebook and Twitter, and rum does increase your chance to get lucky. Respectfully and responsibly, with a female perspective.

Oh, and the rum bottles looks tasty also.

Even if this blog has focused mostly on Flash based interactive experiences, that doesn’t mean i have anything against web standards. Quite the contrary, with XHTML+CSS being preferable in most of the cases, unless your idea uses media that is best fit for a more interactive technology.

And since what really matters are fresh ideas, here’s the redesign from Sequence, a San Francisco based design and strategy agency that excels on using modern web standards to create a dynamic website, with a unusual approach to navigation, that many would thought impossible a few years ago without using Flash.

Under the hood the website is using HTML5, CSS (with an iPhone optimized version), Javascript (Mootols) and Cúfon, a font replacement technique based on SVG (VML on IE) and JSON.

We’ve come a long way in web standards, and even if XHTML 2 is no longer, there’s plenty of innovation out there, from Mozilla Labs to the multi-platform reach of Webkit. So you’d better think of a pretty damn good excuse to develop a site only in Flash.

As promised, here’s the presentation from yesterday at RIApt AUG, on a 30 minutes talk about why you should care about Progressive Enhancement and how it can be applied to websites developed with the Flash platform.

The sample code (with SWFObject, SWFAddress and XSLT samples) is also available for download.

Update: As Marcos rightfully points out, the Slideshare link isn’t that “accessible”. So here’s a PDF or ODP for download.

Fallon London and B-reel have worked together to relaunch the Cheesestrings brand, with a entertaining campaign site at mrstrings.co.uk.

The joyful playground invites kids to create their elastic and cheesy characters and place them in the Meadow, a world where one must find clues and avoid several traps. Beautiful illustrations along with well thought character physics will surely be delightful to the core audience, and the sounds reminded me of the also wonderful World Of Goo. Which is my way of saying that i love a well crafted kids website.

During this month, some of the most established names in web design and development have been publishing a daily article at 24ways.org, keeping the tradition of previous years.

From Jeffrey Zeldman to Drew McLellan (not to be mistaken with Drew from Marketing Minute), the 24 articles are one of the best web design resources created this year, with solid tips from beginner to advanced for web professionals or just to impress your friends.

Highlights to the articles by Jason Santa Maria on Making Modular Layouts and a art direction beginner class by Mark Boulton. A edgeofmyseat.com production, it was edited by Drew McLellan and Brian Suda, with design by Made by Elephant.

Head over to www.fly-a-balloon.be
Don’t resize your browser.
Watch what happens.

One of the best examples on how to use the browser and web technologies as a creative medium. Simple javascript effects and carefully synced video can do wonders for your interactive experiences.