INFRONT MANIFESTO
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Australian INfront is a collaborative project space and launch pad to Australia's best online designers, artists, companies and other design related web sites.
INfront is also a growing community of like minded individuals who meet up face to face at INfront gatherings to inspire and motivate each other. Lean on each other at times. Bend the rules. Help when there's a need for a freelancer, a brainstorm, an opinion or some constructive criticism.
INfront intends to elevate the perception of Australian art and design to a more accurate level, one that reflects the sophistication, individuality, and passion of Australian creatives.
Australia, design and art are fundamental to our being and as a group we intend to explore what this means to ourselves and the international community.
Our work is Australian and of international standard. We seek GLOBAL RESPECT.
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ABOUT US
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In 1999 a small group of Australian designers got together, we created an email list using a free email list service and we got talking. We asked ourselves some questions:
- Why is it that we first hear about good Australian design and art from an overseas source?
- Why is it common thought that you have to go overseas to make it?
- Why is everyone looking overseas for inspiration?
- Why is everyone trying so hard to imitate the latest styles from Europe or the States?
More and more we shared a vision, that Australia kicks ass and that we love Australia. We love our environment, our animals, history, we love it that we have a view. We are inspired by living and working here.
INfront averages between 3000-4000 unique visitors daily and we have Media Temple, to thank for sponsoring us with free hosting.
INfront is a non profit organisation. All seven members make their money working in the design industry. We forge the time to work on INfront because it's very much a part of us.
Our aim still stands, to promote Australian digital art and design to the world and we'll continue to do that by supporting and documenting experimental visual design projects.
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ABOUT THE SITE
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HOMEPAGE
FEATURE BOX - Use this feature box to launch our latest projects.
NEWS - There are many design community sites out there which do a great job of promoting the latest international design related web sites. We don't want to compete against these sites and so we focus exclusively on posting Australian only news.
PROJECTS
VISUAL RESPONSE - This project was created by Domenic Bartolo
Visual Response (VR) is a project which promotes creativity. We typically invite designers to interpret a single, suggestive word, like "CULTURE." Your end product must be a single graphic that's the same size as everybody else's, and it can't contain any photos or scans. Everything in it must be created from scratch in a program like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. It avoids someone using an amazing photograph as a great start to an image.
VR is something you can do in your lunch break at work. It's not uncommon to find designers slaving away at corporate drudgery. This is unhealthy for a creative person. And many a time we have spoken to designers who burn out and lose their design skills, lose inspiration and lose their passion for design. Projects like VR help to remind designers why they chose their profession in the first place. Instead of being given so many guidlines, so much horrible content you have to use in your work, you are refreshingly given nothing but a word and a blank canvas to fill in in any way you see fit.
We've found that the best thing to aim for is a word which is topical. A word which really makes people think. Visual response gives people a platform to express something. A social comment. Something important.
Visual Response is not just about playing in Adobe Photoshop. It's always been a project which aimed to push people to explore visual communication.
The Visual Response project raises questions for both the participating designers and spectators.
FLASH RESPONSE - VR in flash - open to using scans and audio.
VISUAL DIALOGUE - The Visual Dialogue project has many different variants. The usual Dialogue begins with one designer creating an image and sending it to another designer who creates an "interpretation" of the image and sends it back. The Dialogue can continue for many turns and only ends when the two are satisfied with the result.
In most cases the artwork shows a huge drift over time the original image disappears, and the designers come up with a final piece that is far removed from anything they started out with. It's a conversation between two or more creatives but instead of using words, you are using images, passing them along like a game of Chinese whispers. Having a Visual Dialogue is a great way to break down language barriers and get to know someone in a completely different way.
FORUM - COMMUNITY
We encourage people to ask questions, to have something to say, and to have opinions.
The INfront forum is a simple Bulletin Board System, it's free to register and open to the public. It's a powerful communication tool for designers, programmers, people looking for work or people looking to hire designers.
The forum empowers designers.
For example. Rates, it's a hot topic that pops up often on the Forum, how much should I charge? By discussing this topic, and by collating peoples contributions, thoughts and opinions, we are arming designers with confidence and knowledge. We are free to talk about design ethics, the social responsibility of designers, there is a forum where people can ask for feedback on their work, it's not uncommon to find companies which have many staff but only one designer. The pressure on that one designer can be immense. To work as the only creative, to have no other designer in the room to bounce off. That's where the Forum can come in to play, being on the Forum is like being in a room full of designers. There is a forum called the GRAFFITI WALL where people are invited to start public Visual Dialogues.
DIRECTORY
The Directory is where we list and expose the best Australian individuals and design companies. It's the yellow pages of creativity. You can search for individuals, companies, schools, galleries, we are interested in listing anything design related and hope that if you have a site for us to link that you will email us, or if you know o f a site that is not listed and you think it should be, email us the URL. Of-course getting listed is free and viewing the list is free.
OFFLINE
GATHERINGS - INfront gatherings are a real life get together. We've had a few of these gatherings. We usually promote the events through our mailing list and through the site and get people together at a local Sydney bar or pub. It always great to put the faces to the names. It's a great excuse to get together and create a real network and further the experience of finding like minded people.
PROMOTION - More and more we are pushing to get offline, in books, magazines, radio and even television. We have presented at various colleges where we involved design students in live, in class Visual Response projects.
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THE MEMBERS
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Matthew Willis |
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Click here to view the INfront members biographies.
Web site design and construction by:
- Justin Fox
- Domenic Bartolo
- Ryan Hays
- Matthew Willis
- David Johnson
- Sean Torstensson
Backend by David Johnson.
Small pixel font by Craig Kroeger.
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HOSTING
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Thanks to the wonderful people at MediaTemple for sponsoring us. INfront's super fast hosting, email and discussion forums are provided free of charge, in support of the design community.
Thanks to the people at Microsoft, and the .NET Developer Community, for providing the ASP.NET Forums software used on this site.
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THANKS
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The INfront members (Domenic Bartolo, Sean Torstensson, Matthew Willis, David Johnson, Brad Eldridge, Anna Augul and Justin Fox).
INfront list members (Alex Peters, John Lampard, Tim Kotsiakos, Michael Signal, Jade Palmer, Kevin Vo, Finnegan Spencer, Jamie Fox, Greg Chandler, Lee Stephens, Tanja Kimme, Oz Dean, Ashley Bolland, Von Dekker, Sarah Brennan, Ashley Ringrose and Andrew Johnstone) for all the feedback, discussions and meetings.
- John Frostell
- Andrew Johnstone
- Joseph Shepter
- John Dymond
- Laurence and SK
- Laura Taylor
- Rick Bennett
- Sabine Leone
- Toby Grime
- Steve Scott
- Tim O'Neill
- Aidan Ormond
- Din Heagney
- Ryan Holsten
- Mat Mejia
- Mschmidt
- Ry Wharton
- Thomas Brodhal
- Ellen Watson
- Richard May
- Chris Mountford
- Harsh Patel
- Mark Fennel
And all of the people behind the sites that have supported us.
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