From September 1999 to November 2001 we commissioned many of the most groundbreaking designers in the emerging new web design medium to design a monthly cover page for Archinect. The mission was to create a cover page invoking an architectural theme, using the tools that each designer was most comfortable working with.

Month : November 2001
Designer : Tom Muller (ximeralabs.com)

Statement : me.an.der
To proceed by or take a winding or indirect course.
Structural architectural organics.

Ximeralabs is an ongoing online platform for different experiments towards design, graphics and form - and the different internal relationships between them.

XimeraLabs.com also doubles as a cross-media design studio.

Tom Muller originates from Antwerp, Belgium; where he studied Graphic and Advertising Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Intrigued by New Media he ventured into web and interaction design. He was senior designer for Vintage in Antwerp, and senior art director for Vir2L Studios in London.

Since June 2001 he is a one man design agency through Ximeralabs and part of DUOLOG  - Visual Identity Systems - a collaborative design studio, based in the UK and Belgium.

He drinks too much coffee, smokes too many cigarettes and reads too many comics.

Links:
www.ximeralabs.com
www.duolog.ximeralabs.com

Month: June 2001

Designer: Dan Schechter ( www.hotlixx.com and www.deathbyvendingmachine.com )

Statement: It's the whole uncertainty principle thing. To observe an event, you must alter it. We displace space and therefore change it.

Profile: Dan works at Nettmedia and lives in Brooklyn. Find out more about him here .



Month: May 2001

Designers: Daniel Jenett of www.jenett.com and Benjamin Bratton of www.Cultureindustry.com

Statement: Nothing Bonaventured is a preview/ trailer version of an intermedia essay forthcoming Spring 2001 by Benjamin Bratton and Daniel Jenett, of Los Angeles and Hamburg respectively. That piece will represent one 'chapter' in the first volume of a series of broadband edited volumes entitled The Culture Industry.

This series will publish bleeding edge digital works in/on/of topics related but not limited to: avant-garde microbiology, bio/media art, visionary commercial incorporations, wearable/ingestible computation, exogenesis, animate architecture, intelligent agency, digital incarceration, teledildonics, the momentum of medical imaging, post-photographic portraiture, comparative prosthetics, algorithmic desire, terminal population modeling, digital-age neurology, genome adventurism, autopornography, literatures of dismemberment, virtual vertigo, nanobiotech, Marks of the Beast, imminent immanence, economies of secretion, artificial stupidity, robotic disease, Post-Taliban Cinema omnisensory interfaces, inorganic sex, Britney Spears/ Charles Manson, Y2K Bugs, Tamil Tigers, CIA, ILOVEYOU viruses, Molatov Cocktails and Postironic Martinis, Southern Fried Jihads, Mllwall, ethnocide-as-urban-planning, Napsterism, Unabombers, Columbine/ Pax Microsoft, Surveillance S/M, WTO, FMLN, ETA, RAF, DJIA, FOX, BATF, SLA, SPK, TRW...

Please send inquiries regarding this series to projects@cultureindustry.com



Month: April 2001

Designer: Shawn Moore of www.rocketpoweredmice.com

Statement: She sat there and watched as the sun settled on her newly mowed grass. Waiting for all in the neighborhood to envy her and her freshly cut yard that was trimmed to perfection like Caesar receiving a haircut.

To return back to those days. To return back to those memories of that forgotten summer where we laid on the shag carpet talking about the future and wondering if the grass would ever grow.



Month: March 2001

Designer: Maruto : Celestial Architect of www.once-upon-a-forest.com

Statement: Did your world exist from the beginning, or was it somehow created by the very act of thinking about it ? The question may well be meaningless; time may be an illusion, and reality may require no more than belief to give it substance.

Somewhere, somehow, every possible event or combination of events has taken place. Every alternate history ever imagined, every world of illusion ever dreamed of, all, all have concrete reality, somewhere.



Month: January/February 2001

Designer: Bradley Grosh ( www.gmunk.com ) and Mike Young ( www.designgraphik.com )

Statement: Bradley Grosh and Mike Young, yearlong co-workers at Vir2L Studios, have always inspired each other's work to innovate new modes of graphical expression... This cover was another typical collaborative effort, as the two artists combined 3D renderings with a graphically rich flash animation to create an architectural structure both surreal and imaginative, yet representational in its own right..

They also sought out Rasmus Nielson (bandit@888.nu), a Danish audio designer to produce an atmospherical soundscape and bring forth an appropriate ambience to their artwork...

Bradley Grosh (gmunk) loves Vegan meals, windsprints on the treadmill and sleeping on floors... His inspirations can be found online at presstube.com...

Mike Young (circus monkey) loves diet coke and lazy one mile jogs on the treadmill that cause his ancient case of Scolytus multistriatus (a vector of the fungus causing Dutch elm disease) ache's to haunt him in the cold winter mornings of Washington DC. His inspirations can be found at dextro.org....



Month: December 2000

Designer: Richard Catoiestad from Retron

Statement: Location/Nationality: Oslo, Norway

-From Oslo, Norway
-18 years old

-This is my first work done with Flash which I learned during this project.

-Plans for studying architecture or Industrial/Product Design (Specializing/studying math, science, chemistry now). Going to an experimental/alternative school.

-Retron.com is a portal for three sites, one futro, one retro, and a portfolio.

RETRON = RETRO + FUTRO (TRON is kind of a futuristic word)

I like hard, sharp geometric shapes as well as organic. I like to play with 3d, - it often results in cool shapes and objects. My next project is to design my own sunglasses.

For web i prefer clean futuristic and clubby/techno design (it got to have the net-look).

For real life i prefer modernistic 30s - 70s, especially 60s Spaceage design, Furniture, Architecture, clothes, gadgets, watches, cars, etc. This is also reflected in my music taste. My favorite Artists/Styles are : Hugo Montenegro, Ennio Morricone, retro Italian, German porno and b-movie music (you can find high quality music in here) (crippled.de), Animals, The Who, Air, Instrumental rock such as Dick Dale. And I am sure there are a lot of music I haven't discovered yet.


Month: September 2000

Designer: Eric Rodenbeck - www.Stamen.com

Statement: Eric recently founded Mission Broadband with Andy Slopsema www.combine.org , Jen Dugan www.jenfu.org , Josh Draper and Sam Mcaffee www.quokka.com Mission Broadband creates integrated, highly interactive content for high-bandwith networks.

A failed architect, Eric tried to study architecture at Cooper Union in New York City but found his "let's try it out and see what happens" approach unsuitable for building real-world objects. He spends his time building digital media instead, an endeavor which is far less dangerous for everyone concerned.



Month: August 2000

Designer: James Widegren - www.THREEOH.com

Statement: THREE.OH - Inspirational Kingdom is a graphic design portal that focuses on a textual as well as visual exploration of issues within the mandate of graphic design. THREE.OH promote artists/web designers on the internet, and we are an online resource for anyone interested in digital design. We aim to provide a more insightful appreciation of how design functions in this medium. 'Conceptual Exploration, Artistic Inspiration'.

James originates from Sweden where he studied Media Communication. He was interested in architecture before school but studying media lead him into design and there he found the web. After a couple of years designing with a lot of co-labs and working as a freelancer, James moved on to Razorfish Ltd., Vir2L Technology Inc. and is now working in London for e-Nexus Studios Europe Ltd. which is a sister division to Vir2L.

The concept behind the cover is self explanatory if you have intelligence. james@threeoh.com www.threeoh.com




Month: July 2000

Designer: Davin Risk - www.Fluffco.com

Statement: Davin Risk is one-half of Fluffco - a design partnership based in Toronto, Canada. With a background in intermedia and traditional fine arts, Davin has been a practicing designer since 1994. For the last few years, Fluffco has been predominantly a new media design company with a focus on having and creating 'fun'. Finding his way through actionscripting by trial-and-error; Davin enjoys making interfaces which challenge rational notions of navigation. Davin's favourite architects include: Le Corbusier, Chernikov, Lebbeus Woods, Buckminster Fuller, and Frank Lloyd Wright.




Month: June 2000

Designer: Mr. Eel - www.metempsychosis.com/mr-eel

Statement: "I mainly make websites. I prefer screen-based work because it is instantly gratifying. I have a habit of being obsessive about things. I often sit up late at night working on something. I want to live on Mars someday (I'm serious, I really do). Music and graphic design are my twin passions. I love electronic music. I find it intellectually engaging. Brevity is a virtue so.....that's enough for now."



Month: May 2000

Designer: Niko Stumpo - www.abnormalbehaviorchild.com

Statement: I am a skater
I love colors
I love shapes
I love dub
I love reggae
I love to try
I love to fail cause it makes me learn
I love my girl
I love to lay in the grass in a beautiful sunny day.
I love to have the wind blowing in my face
I am scared of thecnology
I thought about this animation because everything is too fast now,
everything is chaotic
today you see one thing tomorrow it is considered old.
We don't have the time to think about things,
we do one work and while we work on it we think about the next project.
We do it everyday.



Month: April 2000

Designer: mschmidt from www.k10k.net

Statement: Not much to say, really - co-creator of K10k with funkmeister Toke Nygaard, which means he has a life based around computers, emails, pixels and late-night arguments. And, no, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Likes the warp electronica, the noisy industrial and the british shoegazing. Thinks that grey is the new black.

Is still trying to figure out what he should name his black apple powerbook - and whether his girlfriend will think that he's weird for doing so.

The idea for the cover was based around what should have happened on this past New Years Eve - but never did. You'll see what you want to see.



Month: March 2000

Designer: Tim Spear of www.nowwashyourhands.com

Statement: nowwashyourhands.com is a new website. If you would like a nowwashyourhands sticker, send your address to freestuff@nowwashyourhands.com



Month: February 2000

Designer: Chip Minnick

Statement: chip minnick, referred to as "i" or "me" or some obscure grammatical version of either in the following text, co-founded and works at dnup in santa monica. dnup formed as a construction drawing & administration service and is currently experiencing strategic seepage. that's that. now this: the most lingering interests in the oasis-like accessible regions of my barren plain of consciousness the past few years have been (1) mid-large scale housing, its manufacture and its marketing in the context of consumer culture. (2) redesign of the architect as a less lofty, more integrated member of the society we're so apt to observe, condemn, or flush with academic joy over. (3) advertising's impeccable graphic and textual sharpshooting. all that said, dnup's current project list consists entirely of single family residences scrappily scored on some circuitous, private network linked by handshakes & yelling over a din of pneumatic hammers. which actually sounds kinda cool. . . when fleshed out as such. . . i guess. dnup 216 pico #15 santa monica, ca 90405 310.399.5091 dnup@mindspring.com 'everybody in buildings '



Month: January 2000

Designer: Anders Schroeder of www.dform1.com

Statement: DFORM1. is a 2 year old design studio based in Aarhus, Denmark, mostly doing deconstructive electronic and robotic digistuff for the underground community and the electronic music scene in denmark. Main inspirations for the company are deconstructive architects like Zaha Hadid, soundscapes from groups like Autechre and a great deal of german electro as well.

"I love purity. But what I like most, is when that perfect purity is broken or disturbed by something annoying and misplaced, that just doesn't fit into the whole, but makes the piece unique, by giving you that certain feeling. I think that combining elements that you normally don't expect to see together, often turns out to create a very unique expression."

Anders Schroeder, designer and founder of DFORM1. has just been hired to work for vir2l.com in Washington DC, USA; entering the states on the 1st of February. Sleeps 4-5 hours a day, electronic music non-stop...



Month: December 1999

Designer: Low Country Guidance

Statement: Low Country Guidance is an LA-based cross-media design firm specializing in architecture, web / graphic / furniture / product design, and sound performance.



Month: November 1999

Designer: Todd Purgason - www.JUXTInteractive.com

Statement: Besides developing a reputation as a superstar web designer (2 of his projects are featured in the ARCHINECT site of the month section), Todd is also and ex-architect. He has this to say about the November cover design:

"I wanted to create a cover that drew from ARCHINECT somewhat while giving it my own twist, I also wanted to avoid the typical architectural digital style that relies heavily on wireframes or perspectives. Thus I went down the information based iconic symbolism road. I also wanted to reflect on what ARCHINECT represents the bringing together of architects and technology connecting them and promoting the evolution of architecture through technology. Since the practice of architecture on the whole has been slow to embrace the digital revolution due to the age old traditions and practices that they have built their businesses on. Many architects feel victimized by the rapidly evolving state of technology and resist the change it demands in the work place. As most architects I know are minimalists at heart, I chose to use this and create an assault on the senses of the visitors agitating their minimalist sensibilities. I did this to reflect the assault that technology makes on architects forcing them to deal with the change or become obsolete.



Month: Bonus, late October, 1999

Designer: Raremedium Inc - SF:

Marius Gronvold
Mattias Jonsson
Joerg Stierle
Brian Kralyevich

Statement: --



Month: October 1999

Designer: Clancy Pearson - www.clancypearson.com

Statement: Mr. Pearson's position is Lord of Darkness and Guitars at Low Country Guidance.



Month: September 1999

Designer: Test Pilot Collective - www.testpilotcollective.com

Statement: TEST PILOT COLLECTIVE designed the cover page for September 1999. Test Pilot Collective is a Minneapolis-based type and design studio, founded in 1997 by Michael Cina, Matt Desmond, and Joseph Kral. Due to their unnatural obsession with typeface and graphic design, they formed like Voltron to become one powerful entity. Their expertise is in creating custom typefaces, as well as graphic and web design.