Today, I revived Justwatchthesky from the internet graveyard/landfill of "coming soon" pages. The scope is narrow: An exercise in documenting words in the music I listen to with color and type. The constraints are simple: (1) Only use Georgia (serif) or Helvetica (sans) and (2) try to post as often as possible. We'll see how long the experiment will last, but for now, I'm enjoying it. It's like a music blog/splash page hybrid. Very popular in Sweden.
by Ryan on July 17, 2008
I dig how you choose colors from each songs album art. Tis very purty and a great use of tumblr.
17 Jul 08 at 3:57pm
Absolutely brilliant.
17 Jul 08 at 4:24pm
Looks great. Great taste in music too. Excited for you to update with more.
17 Jul 08 at 4:47pm
Really good idea.
17 Jul 08 at 6:18pm
Wonderful stuff Ryan. Inspiring (as always).
17 Jul 08 at 6:20pm
Reminds me of the days of yore when designers would do screens in flash in a similar way — the good old days. I dig it Mr. Sims.
17 Jul 08 at 6:42pm
Really great idea and well executed. Had you seen someone else do this before? I love it and might have to "borrow" the idea for my personal site. What a fun way to share music.
17 Jul 08 at 8:46pm
Love it. Love it. Love it.
17 Jul 08 at 9:33pm
Very, very nice.
Might I suggest larger target areas for the forward and backward arrows? They be tiny…
17 Jul 08 at 11:02pm
Great use of Typography, I paid a lot more attention to that on my own site. But great work on yours, it looks amazing, and I love the subtle touches like when you click on your main text, it brings you to Amazon to buy that album, great idea.
Keep up the great work!
18 Jul 08 at 8:03am
I love seeing these experiments. This should be used as an example in typography classes around the globe. I love how you're embracing constraints with the type as well – very cool. Just don't burn yourself out. :)
Also, If you haven't already, go and check out some posts on Jason Santa Maria's site – it's a similar concept in changing the look of the page to fit the message. Great, great stuff.
18 Jul 08 at 8:28am
Great idea, and excellent implementation. It's delightfully simple and engaging.
18 Jul 08 at 0:58am
Wow, thank you for all the kind words. As for making the target areas on the forward/back buttons, I made this quick and dirty with little thought as to usability. When I get some free time, I'll be making some little changes. Thanks for the feedback.
18 Jul 08 at 4:22pm
Wow! Very well done! The corners of my mouth instantly curled upwards as I read the line from Elbow's Grounds for Divorce. I just listened to it a few hours ago. For the God-knows-how-manieth-time. Seen the bunch live in Amsterdam. Loved it!
19 Jul 08 at 5:11pm
Well done, Ryan.
I'm curious, how'd you get the nifty flash player in the bottom right corner to play the tunes? Is that something Amazon provides? Or perhaps something you've hand-rolled?
Kudos, at any rate. Inspiring little exercise!
19 Jul 08 at 7:39pm
this is so made kinds of awesome
19 Jul 08 at 9:10pm
@Jason: I'm pretty sure it's the Tumblr player, but I could be wrong.
20 Jul 08 at 1:02am
It looks great Ryan. I love the colors and type and the music is fantastic, you've opened my eyes to a few new bands already. Keep up the great work.
20 Jul 08 at 1:41pm
wow
20 Jul 08 at 2:00pm
reminds me of some old school trueistrue or prate… nice.
20 Jul 08 at 4:55pm
@fathima: Thanks to you I give yourself?
@Jason: Yes, Matt is correct—I'm using the Audio post on Tumblr.
@Shawn: Well, perfect! Glad to hear it!
20 Jul 08 at 9:09pm
My life is now complete (esp. with the Frightened Rabbit lyric.) I can die a happy woman.
20 Jul 08 at 9:44pm
this is awesome – I really like the idea of simplicity that justwatchthesky has to it – it's perfect
21 Jul 08 at 1:10am
Whoa! This is pretty sweet! So pretty, very nice.
21 Jul 08 at 3:50am
I love this, very very much.
If you need help or ever need/would like a guest to help post I'd be more than happy to help out.
It actually might be a cool idea if you reformatted it to be a multi-author blog, so everybody could express themself in a different style everyday, etc.
I'm just babbling though, keep up the good work. :)
21 Jul 08 at 10:53am
@jamie – Oh. Oh, oh. Good call on the guest authors. I think that would be a really nice experiment. I don't know that I'd restructure it completely as it is the closest thing I have to a personal site.
21 Jul 08 at 11:39am
"next" link is farrrr too small
21 Jul 08 at 2:10pm
@tom: As I said before, I'll figure out a better solution, but thank you for the constructive criticism!
21 Jul 08 at 2:15pm
I like your taste in music, and that I haven't listened to any of it before. New-found artists are a good thing.
21 Jul 08 at 3:36pm
THe text and color combos definetely jump at you. I like it.
21 Jul 08 at 3:52pm
I love the concept and the execution, but I have one question:
Why offer a spiffy iPhone/iPod icon if the audio player is FLASH? Is that your way of being optimistic about the future of Flash & Apple?
Again though, lovely work. And I agree with those above that you make excellent choices for your selections.
21 Jul 08 at 10:52pm
Great idea and wonderful execution! Might try and listen to Taken by cars with the album Endings Of A New Kind from the Philippines. Might squeeze somewhere in your music taste, since I recognized a lot from your music. Keep up the good stuff.
29 Jul 08 at 6:07pm
Really nice work Simmy, as usual.
4 Aug 08 at 10:52pm
Ryan Sims is the lead designer for a small company in Boston called Virb Inc. (formerly Unborn Media). Back in 2001, he and Brad co-founded Neubix, a little design studio in the Midwest. He wishes he could read more books.
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WORK & PLAY: They're never ok to mix the way we do.
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The other night, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to tweak out my profile on MySpace.
I decided to make a full length short film at 3 AM, starring none other than Brad Smith.
This bubble has become My White Whale; and my battle begins. Call me Ishmael.
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As Always. Great Stuff.
Ivan
17 Jul 08 at 3:40pm