Three other web sites I've looked into

Somazone
I would call this an "art" driven site as it doesn't have the best of navigation buttons, it's laid out too well, and uses are work for the main background of the site.

From the very first link "What's new" I would defiantly say it's an arty site, as the actual background doesn't cover the whole of the screen when you scroll down the page
- also the links on the LHS have a greyish looking background behind them, and to think someone with design skills or design knowledge might have put this site together... I wouldn't believe, or would say - they actually don't have any design skills...

Manifesta
As soon as I looked at this first page I thought "Design".
There is a re-occurring colour theme of pink used throughout the first page, and every link/page after that as well.

I am surprised though that the when you click on 1 of the menu links, and are taken to a new page, the links on the LHS have a black background when scrolled over... this adds a bit of a tacky feel to the page I personally feel as I'd never do that for links..

Diacenter
Knowing nothing about this site - or about the person it's representing... I've looked in the menu bar and seen "Artist's Web Projects" so I'm assuming this site is about an artist.

I don't know what category to list this site under - it don't think it has used any bed design concepts, but it doesn't have the "arty, not well laid out" feel a true "arty" site would have. I wouldn't say it's a designers site, but it's not as bad as an artist's site...

Design and Arty Sites

So I've been having a look around at a number of web sites - and I've been trying to figure out which one's I'd classify as arty or design sites, and why.

One of the sites has been the Smirnoff web site. I personally believe that some of the best advertising we see these days on tv and on the internet comes from the alcohol industry. They have thousands of dollars to spend on their advertising campaigns, and of late this has resulted in a lot of the TV Advertisements and web sites receiving awards for some of the best designs and adverts out there.

I love going to these web sites because the majority have been made in Flash, and I love looking at sick Flash sites, and because of the huge amount of money able to be spent in creating these sites - you just know they'll look fantastic.

Back to the Smirnoff site - is it arty or more of a designers site?

I believe this is more of a design site than arty as it is extremely well designed, with fantastic layout, navigation and animation used. The Flash element to the site has been designed to integrate smoothly with each page and the logos, and the overall feel of the site I believe shows excellent design characteristics (especially with the use of colour).

The site does incorporates some artistic elemts to it which can be seen through the use of vector art around the borders for every page, and also in all the drop down menus and other graphical images seen throughout the site.

1st Class of WAD

Had the 1st Introductory lesson for Web Art and Design today.

Our 1st task was to create a blog.

I've never had a blog before, just because I never really saw the point in having one.  But what will be displayed on this site is all my thoughts and work carried out in this course.