By Ken Coupland
November 2001

They Rule <http://theyrule.orgo.org>
As the concentration of power among the world's corporate and government elite continues to accelerate, what's been missing is a clear explanation of how they're all interconnected. New Zealander Josh On has performed the daunting task of consolidating information on the U.S. ruling class into a striking online display that exposes the incestuous ties that bind our multinational movers and shakers. Using the Flash plug-in, On has crafted a simple, intuitive interface that allows visitors to explore this intricate and secretive web of complicity. The ingeniously conceived site--later to build out to a dissection of enclaves worldwide--marries intelligent information design with a radical, even subversive, political agenda.

Forest Stewardship Council <www.fscoax.org>
Faced with public indignation over the destruction of the world's forests, wood and paper companies have tended to respond with confusing, and often deceptive, product labeling. A recent survey of sustainability claims for timber products found that only a handful could be even remotely substantiated. The Oaxaca-based Forest Stewardship Council is working to provide an objective and credible labeling scheme for wood and paper products worldwide--and it's getting cooperation from big manufacturers and retailers. Products that carry the organization's logo are derived from woodlands that meet its principles and criteria. This sensible, no-frills site provides lists of certified forests and a map but--so far--no useful consumer information.

Europan Nederland <www.archined.nl/europan-nl/europan_e.html>
In a commendable effort to help young architects get their ideas into physical form, Europan sponsors a biannual competition focused on housing and urban design, open to designers under the age of 40 from the whole of Europe. Following the contest's competitive phase, the organization provides back-end support to nudge deserving projects toward completion. A low-key site posts a timeline of the six previous competitions and more detailed information--with slightly fuzzy low-res renderings--on current winners. Entries are often unorthodox, if not downright bizarre: one project situates an apartment building under an expressway.

Google Image Search <http://images.google.com>
Not content to be the search engine of choice (surely you aren't still using Yahoo?), Google recently juiced up its offering with an image-search function that scrutinizes some quarter-billion potential matches and has quickly become a favorite tool among the design digerati. A search on "Isamu Noguchi" turned up hundreds of photos of the sculptor-designer and his works, shown as thumbnails that jump to a page where the image is depicted both in the context of its source page and at its original size.

Reala <www.reala.se>
Stockholm-based animators Samuel Nyholm and Jonas Williamson revel in creating a vaguely malevolent Lego-like world that's about as far removed from the cool reserve of traditional Scandinavian design culture as you can imagine. Concocting bizarrely rendered "sign families" composed of figures, fonts, and pictograms, the duo casts their online video loops from a mutating roster of robotic characters. Skip the home-page bulletin board, where visitors have posted the usual incomprehensible blather, and go to song samples (yep, the team is also in several bands), then to "Movin' Reala" to view the mini-epic "The Music Guys."


Browse our Screen Space archives for even more reviews of Web design and resources.

Ken Coupland can be reached at screenspace@metropolismag.com.


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