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Here you can view my thoughts on the readings for the Handmade Web class.


J. R Carpenter - A Handmade Web

In this article, Carpenter talks about the differences between a “Handmade Website” as opposed to more modern processes and the properties that make them unique. He points out the similarities between handmade (coded from scratch, page by page) websites and handmade print media as they both take time to put together and the creator is working within the medium to create something from nothing. As corporate websites took over the internet, the handmade aesthetics of websites became less and less popular, but they will always exist in the corners of the web. I wonder if children today will grow up and have a sense of the “handmade aesthetics” as it's pretty hard to come across them surfing the web.

Callum Copley - A Friend Is Writing

This site stressed me tf out lol. I really like the effect of the article being presented in this way, as it was a very meta way to demonstrate the effect of receiving a ton of messages, as well as the effect it has on reading text as it's being sent over in chunks. I thought the commentary on social media was interesting because it pointed out many observations about how almost every platform is trying to be a “one platform for everything” and so they end up copying each other's core features.

Frank Chimero - The Good Room

Ehhh. I didn’t vibe with this reading that much tbh. I read the whole thing (maybe I wasn’t focusing hard enough), but Chimero goes pretty deep into a topic (how the qualities of a room/space with the right context can be super lit, how social media and many other technology have negative effects on life, and religious art), but strings them together very quickly. Reminds me of some of the papers I’ve written where synthesis between very different things were required. I’ve seen and read too many things in the lines of “Social media bad! Corporate bad!” for this to be interesting to me.