Web-Apps Recommendations

Open landing at Bio Bak, one is immediately presented with a host of questions, and none more pressing than, “Just what the hell is this?” And after the initial shock: Why does the French-accented narrator with a megaphone for a mouth have such a long, pimpled tongue? Will the crabby, foul-mouthed metal detector ever wake up again?  And don’t those kids know where jam really comes from?!

Such is the chimerical world of Dutch web designer Coen Grit, whose gritty, phantasmagoric creation defies the boundaries of art and websites. It is at times a game, a still life labyrinth of connected and seemingly random creatures and situations, and other times an interactive landscape that begs for exploration.

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We’ve all used applications that try to recommend new books depending on what we’ve already read… but what if there was a website that also recommended movies and music… and what if that website did it as a drawn out map? Yup, you know I’m going to tell you there is one. And you know you’re going to love it.

Gnod, The Global Network of Discovery, is all about helping users discover cool new artists that fall within the same web of genre, style, and tone as other artists they’re already fond of. Pretty cool, right? The website takes a moment to generate a map, but once it’s completed loading, it actually groups similar artists together, meaning not only can you make one new discovery, but you can make a dozen.

Try it out for yourself. Either enter in a favorite music artist, film, or author and see what awaits you!

This illustration project by Yan Qin Weng is an homage to French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A pioneering aviator and a war pilot, Saint-Exupéry is probably better known for writing The Little Prince, a story about the journey to adulthood. Saint-Exupéry wrote other books, but they’re less known to the average reader. The Hidden Well, a collection of illustrations featuring quotes from Saint-Exupéry’s other works, hopes to change that.

Weng typically loves weaving gorgeous paintings that illustrate fantasy worlds. Her world only exists in the hours of dawn and dusk, where the birds fly its highest and where the ferocity of nature is at its most intense. The Hidden Well, which explores Saint-Exupery’s works like Wind, Sand and Stars, Flight to Arras and Wartime Writings, 1939–1944, is not only a journey through another artist’s work, it’s a glimpse into Weng’s patented form of fantasy. It’s more than a homage, it’s a dream world into someone else’s mind.

When someone thinks of high fashion and designer dresses, he or she usually isn’t thinking about dirt, water, and volcanoes… unless that someone is Liliya Hudyakova, in which case, that’s all she’s thinking about. On her simply titled blog Photo & L’art, Hudyakova brings together the two worlds of designer couture and the natural elements. While combing Mother Nature with all things materialistic may not seem like an obvious pairing at first, it turns out that these two opposing worlds actually click pretty well with each other.

Made by an artist with an eye full of imagination and a love for all things beautiful, this blog is definitely worth checking out. It may be a simple concept, but the visual quality of the pages are mesmerizing, and the places they allow your mind to wander are just as interesting. Next time you need a quick break, skip the Facebooking and spend some time scrolling down Hudyakova’s pages instead. Who knows? You may even see the world a little bit differently after doing so.

We’re no stranger to unusual Tumblrs, but this one we recently discovered might be one of our favorites. Reading in Movies is, quite simply, pictures of people reading in movies. It’s so simple in its premise that it’s kind of genius. Although there are similar Tumblrs, like People Reading in Movies and Books in Movies, Reading in Movies doesn’t try to put too much focus on what these characters are reading and instead focuses on the simple beauty of people reading, letting the two mediums combine in a way that’s weirdly captivating. But of course, when you merge two of our favorite things, it’s bound to be a perfect concoction.