Mindscape In Cyberspace

I have been fascinated by Internet or worldwide web since I was introduced to it, initially as an user and later as a designer, during mid 90s. I remember those days when there were ‘Web Pages’ and how the idea of ‘Web Site’ as “a group of interrelated ‘Web Pages’ seamlessly integrated together to form an information pool” evolved. I noticed how simple formats and default fonts in normal black and underlined blue of the text-heavy sites started getting eager for cosmetic make-overs, often ending up over-doing it, when Graphics were introduced on web pages. How usability experts has started defining the minimalist parameters and how ‘Rich Media’, equipped with high-speed broadband, has overwhelmed the cyberspace with gigs of data. I was always fascinated by the changes of the behavioral patterns of people as they move on from early one-to-one telnet chats to the applet-based public chat-rooms to Webex conferences to voice chats to cam chats. The changes of user psychology that create an complex yet logical mesh of on-line habits as the users evolve themselves from early mailing lists and threads users to someone with multiple profiles in more than one web business and social 2.0 communities and networking sites.

Below are few websites that I like, among all other web presences designed be me in recent past.

Website Design for Altered Black

Altered Black
Being a design shop providing creative design and related services primarily to the corporate clients, I wanted a sober and conservative design scheme, that will eventually make the corporate visitors feel comfortable and confident while visiting this site. At the same time, I also wanted the web site to represent creative ability of the organization and provide sensual pleasure to its visitors. I tried to achieve these goals by using pastel shades, lots of white and empty spaces, a so called ‘Arty’ look, a simple but comprehensive navigation and IA, and a flexible layout that can accommodate enough information about the organization. The site is also well optimized for search engines, has a page rank of 5 and secured its position in Google top ten for targeted keywords.
Visit Altered Black’s website here »

Website Design for South Asia Center, UPENN

Website Design for South Asia Studies, UPENN

South Asia Center & South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania needed a strong visual presence for the websites of their South Asia Center and Department of South Asian Studies to reflect the exclusive nature of these two departments. The main challenge was to create multiple distinctly different visual identities on one single theme and combining multi-cultural characteristics of South Asia on the layouts without emphasizing on a specific one. In these designs I tried to merge various socio-cultural values of different parts of South Asia and meet the visual expectations of people from various demographic zones, by creating ethnic yet cross-cultural design scheme for each site.
Visit South Asia Center’s website here »
Visit South Asia Studies’ website here »

Website Design for Boipara Dot Com

Boipara Dot Com
Boipara is a vernacular literature archive that features alternative Bengali literature, e-books and magazines. I have created an informal design for the site to express the unconventional nature of this particular initiative. The main challenge was to create a template-based design scheme that can be handled by non-designers, later.
Visit Boipara Dot Com here »

Website Design for Films for Freedom

Films for Freedom
This is an on line platform for Indian documentary film-makers, where they can share their views, showcase their movies and organize screenings. A huge group of documentary film-makers led by eminent directors, has started this initiative as a protest against the role of censor board at MIFF 2002. I decided to take up the theme of ‘protest’ for this site and used a photograph of a demonstration by the group as an integrated part of user interface. I have used Courier font for the content, which is not very common in websites, to simulate the feel of manually-typed legal documents or petitions.
Visit Films for Freedom website here »