10/07  : :  09/07  : :  08/07  : :  07/07  : :  06/07  : :  05/07  : :  04/07  : :  03/07  : :  02/07  : :  01/07  : :  12/06  : :  11/06  : :  10/06  : :  09/06  : :  08/06  : :  07/06  : :  06/06  : :  05/06  : :  04/06  : :  03/06  : :  02/06  : :  01/06  : :  12/05  : :  11/05  : :  10/05  : :  09/05  : :  08/05  : :  07/05  : :  06/05  : :  05/05  : :  04/05  : :  03/05  : :  02/05  : :  01/05  : :  12/04  : :  11/04  : :  10/04  : :  09/04  : :  08/04  : :  07/04  : :  06/04  : :  05/04  : :  04/04  : :  03/04  : :  02/04  : :  01/04  : :  12/03  : :  11/03  : :  10/03  : :  09/03  : :  08/03  : :  07/03  : :  06/03  : :  05/03  : :  04/03  : :  03/03  : :  02/03  : :  01/03  : :  12/02  : :  11/02  : :  10/02  : :  09/02  : :  08/02  : :  07/02  : :  06/02  : :  05/02  : :  04/02  : :  03/02  : :  02/02  : :  01/02  : :  12/01  : :  11/01  : :  10/01  : :  09/01  : :  08/01  : :  07/01  : :  06/01  : :  05/01  : :  04/01  : :  03/01  : :  02/01  : :  01/01  : :  12/00  : :  11/00  : :  10/00  : :  09/00  : :  08/00  : :  07/00  : :  06/00  : :  05/00  : :  04/00  : :  03/00  : :  02/00  : :  01/00  : :  12/99  : :  11/99  : :  10/99  : :  09/99
prior listings

 

• frieze.com 12/31/00 
  Description: contemporary art and culture
  Comments: Focusing on contemporary art and culture, today's pick is the online version of a print magazine that's been around since 1991.  Boasting that the reviews in the print magazine are considered the best in the world, they claim "it is the most comprehensive assessment of contemporary art available anywhere."  Well, I don't really know if that's true, but the online version also provides that same content and I will say that the reviews are written well and do cover a broad variety of art-related topics.  The site also provides a substantial amount of content that's not found in the print magazine.  I like the javascript-driven presentation of content and the overall design of the site, and the section that deals with 100 notable shows around the world also provides links to some excellent websites related to those shows.  Though there's a mild pitch to subscribe to the print magazine, I like the non-commercial tone and the fact that it's not cluttered with advertising — not a bad pick to wrap up another great year at CoolSTOP!  Thanks for stopping by...
   
• pixelflo 12/28/00 
  Description: big boy's web toys
  Comments: This is great - chalk up yet another site with "pixel" in it's name!  No — having "pixel" in the site name or description isn't one of the criteria, but there's now 13 such sites in the portal cool zone.  Today's pick comes from two guys, Cal and Peter, who take pride in stating that "all code has been created in Notepad using javascript."  What you find here is great interactive content — "toys" online, if you will, full of flash-less motion and fun to play with.  Excellent graphics and layout for sure — I found it all quite entertaining.  You'll want to give the site time to preload for the best results, but it's well worth it.  Gee, I wonder if pixel.com is taken yet...
   
• Anne Barnard 12/25/00 
  Description: online showcase of photographic imagery
  Comments: Today's pick features the work of a photographer in France but some of the pieces seem more like fine abstract art than photographs.  She calls those photograms and it's a bit unclear how she does them.  Anne Barnard's site is interesting from the start — the main page has words surrounding the image and at first, they look like links but Anne is playing with words here.  The words seem to describe her orientation towards her art and effectively provoke thought and invite the user to explore.  "Spots and marks, gobs and blobs, tangled up unrecognizable jumble that mumbles and shouts; the edge of a pattern; the lines of a hand; a body as it steals through time: I like the where, what and how of these things."  Anne's visions are quite engaging and the presentation of her imagery is done well.  Damn, I love this "job!"
   
• Michael Bullas Arts 12/22/00 
  Description: fine arts & exotic curios
  Comments: If I accomplish nothing else with this daily site picking routine of mine, I hope I can say I pointed you to some really cool artistic content.  For me, the special thing about the web is just that — creativity and personal expression at one's fingertips, period.  When a loyal daily visitor takes the time to let me know how much they enjoyed a daily pick, particularly in terms of the artistic content they found there, that's all it takes to remind me why I do this.  Artistic people like Yo appreciate great art, especially when it's art for everyone, not just for artists — in reality, I do this CoolSTOP thing for people like her who are looking for something special.  With today's pick comes the hope that Yo will be pleased...
   
• Cate's Garage Sale Finds 12/18/00 
  Description: Cate's got quite a collection of stuff she's grabbed from garage sales — tacky t-shirts, weird recipes, old romance novels, and not-so-crafty crafts.  She's got a lot to say about these odd artifacts and I have to admit that I find it all rather amusing.  Isn't the web wonderful?  Where else can you find several pages of "Vomitously Overdecorated T-shirts" and a showcase of other bizarre crafts Cate calls "tasteless assaults on the mind?"  Her tongue-in-cheek approach shines through nicely as she takes to you through the piles of junk she's been collecting.  That big pile of old romance novels has inspired Cate to become a novelist herself and all of the "Arcane Knowledge" she's been accumulating has resulted in Cate being quite the social commentator.  Unique content like this could only exist on the web, and you gotta tip your hat to Cate for having the nerve to put it out there.  Well-designed and full of personality, today's pick is the perfect diversion to start the week with — it's all uphill from here, folks...
   
• Schillmania.com 12/16/00 
  Description: Schill's Home On The Web. Experimental, creative design with DHTML; interactive, user-configurable site.
  Comments: I put my heart into this daily CoolSTOP webthing and when a site like today's pick is submitted, I get excited.  Why?  Because joekitty spends tons of time going through sites submitted by people who just don't get what CoolSTOP is about and when a site comes through that the admittedly prejudiced and full-of-attitude little kitty thinks IS really COOL, the little guy starts dancing and his little eyes glow.  Schill is a wiz at DHTML and is as savvy a designer as I've come accross lately — this totally personal, non-commercial webspace will amuse you as you play with the preferences and drag things around as you please.  I like the windows within the interface and the list of "subsections" which showcases previous designs, though you'll need to use your [back] button to get back to Schill's current design.  This, my friends, is the heart of the web as far as joekitty is concerned...
   
• open letters. 12/15/00 
  Description: a daily magazine of first person writing in the form of personal correspondence
  Comments: I first looked at this site last night and the interesting letter, A promise of riches from Lady Stardust, made me think this daily magazine could be today's pick.  As usual, I decided to "sleep on it" as I wondered if they keep up with the daily schedule — I know first hand how difficult that can be in the world of working full time at another job, while maintaining one's daily creative endeavors on the side.  At least, that's how it is in my case, and I wouldn't have it any other way!  So I checked the site out again bright and early this morning and sure enough, the new piece, A bodybuilder's plea to a judge has been posted.  Kudos for keeping up with it all — another day and another interesting slice of life in the form of personal correspondence.  I think people really like this sort of thing, and the creative contributors to today's pick are all very cool people in my book.  Interesting letters for all to read — short vignettes, if you will, in a nicely designed environment of easy to read texts, presented daily.  Indeed!
   
• suiZide.de 12/12/00 
  Description: somewhere between real life, dreams and hope; a point of view, feeling and self-expression
  Comments: "Selfmade" art and photography is the heart of today's pick, the personal webspace of Tobias Ott.  One look at this guy's photo on the "Impressum" page will give you an idea as to how intense he is about his creative work... at least, that's the impression I got from it.  Illustration and art on a variety of media can be found in the "kunst" section, and the "photo" gallery includes people, architecture, and interiors, to name a few (my favorite area, for sure).  On top of that, Tobias also features some original "musik" pieces.  It's all very creative stuff and it's put out there without pretense.  The design is nice, too — the colorful visuals work well with the dark backgrounds and simple interface (in my humble, but consistant opinion).  But, today's pick really isn't as much about the design as it is about the art... Tobias rocks!
   
• makes grown men cry 12/11/00 
  Description: Featuring LMichelle, MGMC Resource Guide, Michelles of the Web, fem • mass: The personal homepages of the female masses, Inflatable Sheep and Other Passing Fancies, and Heartless's Holey Haven.
  Comments: On the web for over five years now, today's pick is the personal webspace of one L. Michelle Johnson.  And if you're interested in how she's evolved, she tells the whole story in "The Journey: 5 Years on the Web."  What a great read!  As you arrive in the present, she explains that this 7th version "is finished and populated with clean and well-lit content."  Yes, indeed.  She also describes her motivation as concisely as anyone could — "My webpages, and the process of creating them, are still about connecting with people whether it's over shared coding or shared feelings. To me that is the best part of the journey."  True spirit.  The site is full of interesting content, too.  "Inflatable Sheep" is an excellent weblog/journal that tells you more about L. Michelle along with tons of pointers to resources, people and fun destinations — one of the best blogs I've seen.  The "resources" section is rich in pointers, too.  Another thing that'll grab ya is the array of 21 photos of L. Michelle, starting with 1952 and progressing chronologically to 2000.  It's interesting how someone's smile stays the same over the years, dontcha think?  This is the kind of personal site that you'll need to visit more than just a few times to take it all in — great design, personality, and content!
   
• monib 12/10/00 
  Description: Visual communication outside the vacuum. New projects and typefaces. Experiences, observations, processes and interpretations.
  Comments: A certain inspirational portal ("Design, lots of it. It's all good for you.") led me to a very special site — today's pick!  The one page list with hundreds of design links literally provides the user with hours and hours of great web surfing.  Today's pick is the design & typography site of Monib Mahdavi, who is also the producer of that one page portal.  The portal says something about Monib's love for design, and today's pick, his other site, is a showcase of his top-notch work.  The site design is super clean with excellent navigability and the textual content is just as good as the typefaces, posters and web samples.  I really like the way Monib writes about his work as a designer — "My purpose as a visual communicator is to provoke people to exit the vacuum of everyday thought and expose their senses to ideas and approaches which will add substance to the way they fulfill their material, intellectual and spiritual capacities."  I like this guy!
   
• Newseum 12/9/00 
  Description: The interactive museum of news.
  Comments: I guess that to experience the full impact of what today's pick offers, you would have to visit it offline, but the excellently designed site does a great job of not only describing what the "the only interactive museum of news" has in its Arlington, Virginia and New York City physical locations, but the "cyber" version is rich in online content that you could spend hours enjoying.  Online exhibits include "Photojournalist of the Month", "Capture the Moment: Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographs", and "Dateline Moon: The Media and the Space Race" just to name a few.  There's also political cartoons and the adventures of a "cyberjournalist" and the user always has a choice of whether to view the content in HTML or Shockwave/Flash versions.  Oh — and don't miss the little artifacts links in the lower right corner.  I'll be re-visiting this site more than once in the near future to take in more of its interesting fare.  Enjoy!
   
• Morgan Henry 12/8/00 
  Description: Showcase of portrait and sports photographer (Shockwave)
  Comments: If you haven't noticed it yet, I'm a sucker for great photography — in fact, if you do a search in the portal cool zone for "photography," you'll come up with a list of roughly 50 sites (about 4% of my total number of picks to date).  Today's pick comes from a professional photographer in Portland who specializes in portraits and sports-related shots and the galleries are rich in content.  With that said, I've got to admit that the Shockwave interface and tasty site design is what really grabbed me.  I won't bend your ear today with details, but if you like top-notch photography and techy presentation, you'll like this one...
   
• Darko Bandic 12/6/00 
  Description: Portfolio of a photojournalist covering South East Europe and the Middle East
  Comments: Capturing some of the world's recent events through the lens, Darko Bandic, a photojournalist based in Croatia, presents a portfolio of shots from Bosnia to Kosovo to Iraq dating back to 1992.  Though most of the situations have to do with the ugliness of war, his ability to capture the people involved is extraordinary.  Fortunately, the themes are balanced somewhat by his coverage of the millennium "megaspectacle" at the Pyramids of Giza in Eqypt.  All of the photos are engaging and the presentation is done quite well.  Making the popup windows resizable was a good choice and the images are optimized well for pretty fast loading.  I also like the "press clips" which are scans of actual newspapers which included front page photos taken by Darko.  I'm assuming he also designed the site — it's done very well.  Though sometimes, we'd like to forget some of the darker events of the last decade, sites like this one are important reminders that everything is about people... great, thought-provoking content!
   
• rowena dugdale 12/2/00 
  Description: collage & photomontage illustration
  Comments: Design.  It can't always be about Flash and bells and whistles, though it can be.  Sometimes, it's a matter of simplicity.  Clean white backdrop to cool, colorful visuals and easy navigation is the ticket sometimes.  Today's pick is a sweet combination of design and content, in my humble, but always consistant opinion (not to mention, purely subjective and prejudiced) .  Photomontage art is the main attraction and Rowena's uncomplicated presentation keeps the user focused on the content.  Nicely organized — as a user, I appreciate sites like this one... go enjoy!