I’ve been working on a number of web-based projects lately, some that pay, some that don’t. At this moment, I’d like to officially announce one of those projects: Seal Club, a small art and design group. It’s not an agency or anything like that, just a few people that like to make pretty pictures. Really, it’s been operating for a few weeks now but we haven’t been promoting it. There have been some hints around here, namely the Conform Project domain redirecting to Seal Club and the del.icio.us feed in my links.
The site is essentially an old-school ftp-style design site, glued together with a bunch of new tools. We all used to be members of art groups in the pre-y2k web (Swanky, Suffocate) and have some desire to relive those days. Mostly, it’s the motivation of having other people to kick you in the ass when you’re not getting anything done. Everything is done by hand via ftp with some efforts to stay standards compliant. We use del.icio.us to help us maintain our lists or links within the site and the forum is powered by flickr.
Right now, Seal Club has three main sections: 5Q, Conform and Junk. 5Q is an interview style section, where we ask designers and the like five questions unrelated to their field. Check out the the first interview with Eduardo Recife of Misprinted Type.
Conform is no longer a stand-alone project and has been integrated into the site. The first series is up again, as well as two from the original Suffocate site (001, 002). We have also started a new series with Cedric taking the helm on the first image.
That leaves us with Junk, spearheaded by Piero. It’s essentially just a dumping ground for images and ideas with no home. For those times when you make something you kind of like and want to show people but it doesn’t really fit what you were trying to do.
We also have a set of external links that provide us with inspiration. That’s about it for now, keep an eye on the site or the del.icio.us feed for new content.