The Moment Jars

We all have moments we want to capture, celebrate and share. The Moment Jars are a sweet and quiet way to hold on to a moment. Just write your moment down, and place it in a (virtual and magnificently illustrated) jar.

Is It Christmas?

Despite what you may think based on store displays, advertisements, and the color of your Starbucks mug... IT IS NOT CHRISTMAS YET! If at any point in the next couple months you are confused about whether or not it is Christmas yet. Use the handy tool IsItChrismas.com. It will clear up any doubts.

Bank Notes

Ken Habarta has just written a book about the notes that people use to rob banks. He has been posting daily examples of the notes on the blog Bank Notes. Each note is accompanied by a picture of the robber and an icon indicating if the robbery was successful or not. The website is searchable, in case you are only interested in robberies involving polite notes (search for the word "thanks" and "please"). From what I can gather, there is not much of an art to writing a robbery note. The website even has a random bank note generator... in case you are in a hurry.

The F*cking Word of the Day

Are you interested in learning new words, but the regular Word-of-the-Day websites just aren't doing it for you? Maybe try The F*cking Word of the Day (also @thefuckingword on Twitter). Their twist on expanding your vocabulary is to use the words in a sentence that involves sex, drugs or swearing. Ha! Simple, brilliant, and ridiculously effective.

The GOOD 100

I've been thoroughly enjoying The GOOD 100, this month. It is GOOD Magazine's list of the most important, exciting and innovative people, ideas and products making our world better. The 100 cover a wide range of scope and subject from smarter trash cans to same sex marriage advocates. The list is made up of of projects, people and ideas nominated by a combination of the extended GOOD team, and its readers. You can check out the whole list online here.

Incredibox

Incredibox is a interactive website that allows users to mix their own beatboxes using the skilled sounds of The Incredible Polo. The website is fun and super simple to use. You just drag and drop the types of sounds on the the beatboxer's t-shirt to add to the mix. Click on any of the beatboxers to remove their sound. The end effect is really enjoyable to experience.

Learn Something Every Day

If you haven't gotten your daily dose of knowledge today, try Learn Something Every Day. It is a fun little website hosted by the designers at Young which gives visitors a daily fact, spruced up with some quick sketches and bright colors.

How Many People Are in Space?

Do you know how many people are currently in space? ...6. How lucky.

Question Suggestions

One of the joys of using a search engine that gives auto suggestions based on popular searches, is that it gives you a small glimpse into the collective mind. If you've never tried this, stop what you're doing, go to your favorite search engine (I recommend Bing.com) and start to type a question. With each letter you type, the search engine provides new suggestions based on what everyone else is searching for. The results are almost always both fascinating and funny. Justin Talbot has put together a website called Question Suggestions which features his daily explorations into the human psyche through half formulated search questions.

Hunch

Hunch is an interesting new website to help you find the right answer, make the right choice, or discover something you would enjoy. It was created and programmed by a bunch of MIT nerds (their words, not mine) that specialize in machine learning. The site asks visitors a series of questions to help make a personalized recommendation based on what other people like you enjoy. Each question is progressive, using your previous answer to determine what is the most useful question to ask next, in order to come to a recommendation. Hunch gets smarter the more people that use it, and the more you teach Hunch about your personality, tastes, and preferences. The types of questions Hunch provides answers to include "What book should I read?" "Am I a real Trekkie?" or "Should I grow my hair out?". Answers are sometimes a simple yes/no, but more often a series of 3 solid and 1 wild card recommendation.

Trapp Family Lodge Website

I've been checking out the website for Trapp Family Lodge, (as in the Sound of Music von Trapp family) created by Tag New Media. It's a nicely designed website, with an emphasis on photos, which I think always reflects positively on a destination.

My favorite part of the website is the My Scrapbook. It allows visitors to the website to create a scrapbook of their visit (yes, their visit to the website) because, as they say, "we wanted our online guests to have the same opportunity to define what the Trapp Family Lodge is for them" as the real visitors. The scrapbook feature allows visitors to collect photos or ideas from the website into one place. User can then save or share the scrapbook with others. If I was trying to convince someone to go here, I would totally make them a customized scrapbook. I think this is such a good idea, and so well integrated into the site. It is also one of those good ideas that always ends up getting cut, so good on the Trapp Family Lodge for seeing the vision through. (Thanks @jstukey).

Dear American Airlines

"Dear American Airlines, I (Dustin Curtis) redesigned your website's front page, and I'd like to get your opinion. I’m a user interface designer. I travel sometimes. Recently, I had the horrific displeasure of booking a flight on your website, aa.com. The experience was so bad that I vowed never to fly your airline again. But before we part ways, I have a couple questions and three suggestions for you."

Ha! I admire the thinking and motivation behind Dustin's Dear American Airlines website. Designers 1, American Airlines 0.

Pick One

Pick One is an experiment in decision making. Viewers are presented with two (random) words, and asked to pick one of them. Sometimes the decision is easy, and sometimes it is very hard. Behind the scenes, points are given to words that are chosen, creating a very interesting list of the top and bottom 10 words. Pick one was created by Ben Nyberg.

Cards of Change

Have you lost your job lately? Consider joining the glass is half-full community of Cards of Change. It is a website that features business cards from your old job, positively changed to represent your new position. There are some brilliant, uh, adjustments. I only wish they had higher res images.

Cardboard Love

What says I love you better than pen on cardboard? See more heartfelt and recyclable love letters from a self proclaimed pessimist at Cardboard Love. Lovely.

Don't be afraid to be lame.

Texts From Last Night

Texts From Last Night is a funny new blog that features those text messages that you shouldn't have sent last night. Some of the texts from the collection have a voyeuristic appeal, well others are all about the intrigue at the hint of a fantastic story. But of course most of them are just plain head-shaking embarrassing. Submissions are posted annonomysly, using just the area code to show a glimpse of authorship.

Twitter Magnets

Twitter Magnets combines the fun of Magnetic Poetry and Twitter into one web app. You get a bunch of magnetic words to arrange into a tweet. You can swap your words out any time for another set. When you are done, you can post the tweet to your own Twitter account or to @tweetermagnets. (Found through Josh Spear).

FWA photo

The FWA recently launched a daily photos site, FWAphoto.com. They have a neatly designed, minimalist website, that features a new photo ever day. So far, they have featured some beautiful photographs. The content is also available as an iPhone app or a Lightboxer screensaver.

Color of the Internet

Antrepo4.com tried to answer the (hardly age old) question of what is the color of the internet? Although this problem could be approached in many ways, they chose to look at it from the scaled perspective of the top ranked sites. They created 4 posters showing the colors for the top sites in the categories of Global, Design, Games and Blogs. Then surfacing the most dominant color in any category. No surprise that the Global website color was blue (safe, predictable and unoffensive - yawn). Visit their website to see the full range of colors and order one of the beautiful color posters. I'd love to see this done over time.

Donate A Meal

Donate A Meal is a German charity website for donating money to feed the children of Dusseldorf. It combines beautiful web design with a good old fashion guilt trip. To donate money you simply drag and drop food onto a child's plate. You can't help but fill the plate, and then you can't help but follow through with the donation. Very effective.

Neave Vote

I can't get enough of Neave Vote. It is a tongue in cheek voting website intended to make you question the legitimacy of voting. The questions themselves are pretty humorous, but it is the answers that are the true entertainment. There is often just no good answer. You are forced to choose an answer that you probably wouldn't have said, had the question been open ended.

Follow Cost

Ha! I'm not sure if this website is made in jest or not, but it makes me giggle. Follow Cost calculates just how annoying it will be to follow a particular user on Twitter. Annoyance is measured in milliscobles, or 1/1000th of Robert Scoble's Twitter output (twitter.com/scobleizer). For example I (twitter.com/onefloorup) am only 40.82 milliscobles of added annoyance to your life, where as Guy Kowasaki (twitter.com/ guykawasaki) is 1661.68 milliscobles of annoyance (no offense Guy). In case you don't find a lot of tweets annoying, they also show the percent of recent tweets that mention politics and the percent of tweets that are @ replies. Ha! This would be much better if you could specify that things that found annoying and then rate each user based on your criteria.

Twistori

Twistori is an emotive collector (heavily) inspired by Jonathan Harris' fantastic project We Feel Fine. It pulls and displays Twitter content containing the words; I love, I hate, I think, I believe, I feel, or I wish. It is easy to get caught up reading the tweets around any one emotion.

My favorite is I Hate. I was expecting it to be super negative, but it is actually very amusing and uplifting in a round about way. (Thanks James!)

GE Smart Grid Website

GE has a beautiful new interactive website to promote their Smart Grid innovations. The website is stunning, with intelligent interactive features like a print and play augmented reality Smart Grid. The forward thinking website reflects well on their forward thinking ideas about energy. GE has some intriguing ideas about integrating alternative power sources and smart meters into consumer's lives. They make a convincing argument by visualizing the potential impacts.

Can you own a Porsche?

I can. I'm loving Porsche's new I Can website. It's gorgeously designed with simple and elegant graphics and animations. The best part of the site is the Picture It feature which allow you to upload a picture of your house and place a Porsche in your drive way. Love it.

Build a Squid

I had a lot of fun creating my own squid care of the Colossal Squid Exhibition. They have an online tool to build a squid. You adjust all of his parts and colors, give the squid a name and then set him free. You can go back to the site later and find your squid in the big ocean. This is my squid Koshee. You can go and play with him if you want, but be careful, he's recently got in a fight with a toothfish!

51 Japanese Characters

51 Japanese Characters is a collection of characters based on archetypes within Japanese society. Designer Peter Machat, created the characters while living in Japan. Each character has a name and insightful description. Oh, and did I mention the super cute caricatures? You can purchase a poster or postcard set of all 51 characters on Peter's website. Even if you are not planning on purchasing anything, take the time to visit the website. It is done in an impressively stunning, minimalistic style. (Found through Josh Spear).

Special Officer Acadamy

Can't... stop... flipping... blocks.

The Photographic Dictionary

The Photographic Dictionary defines words using photographs to accompany words. They are not your everyday A is for Apple type of dictionary photographs. The meaning of the word is photographically described through literal, figurative or personal interpretations. The photographs manage to give some emotion to the definitions. Definitions of everyday words like "lonely" or "home" are so beautifully enhanced by a descriptive photograph. I'm inspired to start my own personal version.

Eatbite

A picture is worth a thousand words, or rather a mouthful of drool. Eatbite.com helps you figure out what you want to eat, using a picture flashcard method. You scroll through photos of food from New York restaurants and when your mouth starts to water and you tummy grumble, you can hit BITE to see the restaurant on a map. Images can be sorted by location, price, or descriptive tags. The site's users are encouraged to post their own food pictures and add comments or tags to other people's images. I like this idea a lot. It combines a few simple features to provide a minimal but useful application that takes into account the emotional aspect of making decisions. (Found through Springwise).

Umbrella Today

When it comes to the weather forecast, sometimes simpler is better. All you really want to know is whether or not it's going to rain today. Voila, Umbrella Today is your answer. It is a website that only answers one question: Do I need an umbrella today. Answers are based on your Zip Code. If this is the sort of information you require every morning, you can sign up for their daily text service. Nothing makes me happier than a big fat NO in the morning.

Google Knows

Oh no... I'm addicted to flicking through yet another endlessly interesting website. The one is called Google Knows. It's just a collection about funny things that Google knows. Most of them are classic questions based on old jokes (Google knows who's on first), others are social commentary (Google knows more than Sarah Palin), and yet others are based on lyrics or sayings (Google knows who started the fire). Each Google Knows statement is pretty funny on its own but what makes them really interesting is that most of them have some sort of appropriately named links such as 'wait, why is this funny?', or 'what does that even mean?' which takes you to a link containing the answer... very entertaining.

Greg Washington Portfolio Site

I was reminded of Greg Washington's portfolio site today. I first saw it about 4 years ago, and to this day it remains one of my favorite portfolio examples. The main background for the site was Greg's hands and face squished up as if on a scanner. His breathing was reflected in the glass. The whole effect was just so unique and brave that I remember thinking - if I received this portfolio I would hire him immediately. Unfortunately the original site is no longer up but you can see some images and video of the website on Greg's Behance page.

If someone has a more interesting portfolio example, please send it in. I'm always looking to be impressed by portfolio sites.

Dear Adobe

If you are a fellow Adobe user, definitely check out the site Dear Adobe. It's a website dedicated to letting users voice their (unofficial) comments about Adobe products. There are both good and bad comments. Some are pretty entertaining. Visitors to the site can browse the "gripes", agree or disagree with them, or add your own. Write them a letter already would ya...

Normann-Copenhagen

Norman-Copenhagen is a housewares company with a solid design heart. That focus on design is reflected in their elegant new website. The website features beautiful high res images of their products with detail shots, colour options and information about the product's designer. A lot of care and attention to detail went into this website, which reflects well on the products and designers themselves. (Found through The FWA).

No One Belongs Here More Than You

What better way to see a book than with some great storytelling? And Miranda July's website for her book 'No One Belongs Here More Than You' is definitely an example of great story telling (maybe not fabulous photography but good storytelling). I plan on buying the book based solely on the joy I got from the ridiculously entertaining approach to the website.

FontStruct

And speaking of fonts... I just came across this great font building software called FontStruct. It allows you to build, share and download fonts for free. The gallery of designed fonts is very inspiring. (Discovered through Springwise).

Daylesford Organic

I've newly discovered Great Britain's Daylesford Organic. It's an organic store that specializes in food and home products. Their website is drool-worthy gorgeous. It's branding at its best. Plus, they have some refreshing approaches to products, like this fresh organic milk packaged in environmentally friendly, biodegradable, fold-flat milk jugs (slash bags).

Pixlporn

Pixlporn is a risque, or rather not so risque, website that features celebrity's private bits in super pixelated form. You can look at it as art, as an interesting color study, or an exercise for the imagination. However you look at it, it's hard to stop looking. Each pixel image is tagged with the celebrity featured and the source of the image. The above pixels belong to Madonna (in case you were squinting, I mean, wondering).

10mg Interactive Bunny Surgery

The 10mg Interactive site is such a great little advertisement for a web design company. It requires you to preform emergency surgery on a teddy rabbit against the clock. You can't help but keep playing!

Nokia Nseries Urbanista Diaries

The Nokia Nseries has created an interesting website where they tell a tale of 4 bloggers traveling around the globe and taking pictures, to help sell the Nokia 5 megapixel, GPS enabled phones. The advertising story goes like this... "Once upon a time, 4 travelers began a global quest. They beat a path through our urban jungles to seek out untold stories - to capture time, only to release it back into the world. And they laid out a trail so we cannot lose them". You can track the bloggers' travels and view their geo-tagged photos as the post them. It's a cool, overly dramatized take on selling a phone - I like it. (Found through Comuptuerlove).

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far

I'm kind of intrigued by the site Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far. It invites users to contribute maxims that they have learned about life. The site asks "What have you learned in your life so far? What is it that you are fairly sure about? What is it that you believe in by now?". What I like about this site is that they have put an artistic spin on things. Contributions are made in the form of digital artwork. They are sketches, or photos, or movies created to illustrate or include the advice. This one hit home for me... Take a moment, locate yourself. (Found through Josh Spear).

Free Rice

I love the thinking behind Free Rice. The idea is very simple, they use advertising profits generated by visitors to donate money to the UN World Food Program in an effort to help end hunger. People are invited to come to the site and play a multiple choice word game. For each correct answer, 20 grains of rice are donated. The game strengthens your vocabulary and keeps your attention long enough to make the advertising money needed to pay for the rice donations. It's super simple, super smart, and by the look of the stats, super effective. (Found through notcot.org).

Walk Score

If you are moving and looking for a place to buy or rent, you should check out the website Walk Score. It scores neighbourhoods based on how walker friendly they are. Walkable neighbourhoods are determined based on proximity of restaurants, shops, schools, parks, etc. The site admits some shortcomings in their calculations, but overall it's an excellent approximation of walkability. The Walk Score website has a great list of reasons why it's important to live somewhere walkable. The reasons range from the predictable eco-friendly sort to some you many not have though of, such as increased social capital. Very cool site. I'm going to be looking up the walk score of every neighbourhood I consider living in from now on. (Thanks Karon and fam).

Overheard in New York

I'm moving away from New York this week :( I'm really going to miss the character of the city and all its inhabitants. This reminded me of the site Overheard in New York. It's part of a series of websites where people submit pieces of overheard conversations. Too funny! Overheard in New York is my favorite of the Overheard websites. You just have to read a few posts to appreciate the awesomeness of New Yorkers.

BBC's British History Timeline

The BBC's British History Timeline is a (insert best British accent here...) gorgeous (...end accent) way to brush up on your British history. It's a simple but sophisticated interactive timeline that lets you explore significant events in British history from 862BC to today.

Burst Labs

Burst Labs is the online production music library of The Burst Collective. The site takes a refreshing approach to organizing and searching through audio files. I particularly like the Discover feature that allows you to pick from suggested descriptive words to help define the type of music you are interested in. It gives you just the right amount of tools to 'discover' the music with, depending on your level of adventurism or need to define.

Floor Planner

If you are thinking about redecorating (or just rearranging) your house or apartment, you should definitely check out Floor Planner. It's very easy to use and has better graphics than most floor planning software I've seen. The interface is straight forward. You just drag and drop walls, windows and other architectural elements to represent your room and then add contents from the 300+ furniture elements menu. Double clicking on different aspects of the room allow you to enter or alter dimensions. Oh, and it's free for personal use. (Found through Apartment Therapy).

CDX Game

CDX is a interactive video adventure created by the BBC and the always inspiring Preloaded. The game was designed to accompany the BBC mini-series Ancient Rome but it's a fabulous stand alone piece. The game is educational in a very subtle way. It reminds me of a modern, adult version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Preloaded used a combination of Maya Renderings, video, and Flash to create this online adventure. CDX won this year's Flash Forward Game category.

Diesel Style Lounge

A new online Diesel store recently launched featuring this mesmerizing Liquid Space Style Lounge. It has the same dark underwater feel as their amazing holographic fashion show did. The clothes are shown on floating models. To add to the effect they have also changed the behavior of the users cursor in the lounge so it feels as though you are pulling it through the water. Great combination of effects. On a side note, this is supposed to be one of the most complete online Diesel stores ever, including items from the runway not available in most stores. (Found through The FWA).