Neat Websites

Also see: cool artists | interesting people | indie shops | blogroll

Fun projects

It’s Post Day! (Sarah Avenir) — email art project

How Not to Make a Book (Robin Rendle) — documenting the process of creating a book about typography

Werner’s Nomenclature of Colors (Nicholas Rougeux) — A recreation of the original 1821 color guidebook with new cross references, photographic examples, and posters

Screens, research and hypertext — hypertext book about hypertext — love that meta

brr.fyi — blog by an anonymous IT worker who overwintered in Antarctica

WA 100 Peaks — photographer and climber Scott Kranz is climbing 100 peaks in Washington

Johannes Klingebiel’s digital garden — nice design

Emmanuel Quartey’s “questions” — I like the framing and organization of information

Webcomics

False Knees (Joshua Barkman) – comic strips with goofy birds

webcomic name (Alex Norris) – “oh no”

Poorly Drawn Lines (Reza Farazmand) – comic strips with returning animal characters

Cat and Girl (Dorothy) – social commentary from Cat and Girl

Info

Plants and nature

Small Seasons — the year divided into two-week segments named for the natural phenomena that tend to happen then (in Japan, which seems like a decent analogue for Seattle)

Native Plants PNW — comprehensive listings of northwest native plants

Pacific Northwest Wildflowers — photographic database of wildflowers filterable by color and useful for identification

Food

Budget Bytes Vegetarian Recipes — cheap recipes, usually pretty easy

Smitten Kitchen (Deb Perelmen) — Deb has a very inviting writing style – consistently good sources of baking recipes

Still Tasty — database of how long food lasts and storage instructions for a wide variety of foods

Government research

PubMed Central — a free government database of medical journal papers, many of which include free full-text access because the researchers received grant funding 🙌 I’ve been using this database to learn more about supplementation and treatment my doctors suggest

Federal Open Science Repository of Canada — “federally authored scientific articles and publications from participating science-based departments and agencies” — climate & environment portal

Places

Atlas Obscura — a searchable map and repository of cool destinations around the world — I always check this when I’m planning a trip

Close.city — map with overlays for walking / biking / transit times to major destinations — looks similar to WalkScore but without a score

Design

The Creator’s Guide to Comics* Devices (Reimena Yee) — illustrated guide to tools that comic artists can use in storytelling

Butterick’s Practical Typography (Matthew Butterick) — hypertext typography book with guidance and opinions on all things type

Fonts in Use — examples of typefaces in designs, with font pairings identified

Websites for educational YouTube channels

Stand-up Maths (Matt Parker) — YouTube channel with goofy math questions explored with demos and field trips

Veritasium (Derek Muller) — YouTube channel with longer explainer videos on science and engineering topics, often with cool models

Practical Engineering (Grady Hillhouse) — YouTube channel with simple explanations of engineering practices with model demonstrations and case studies

Kenji’s Cooking Show (J. Kenji López-Alt) — down to earth cooking advice from a science minded chef – he often wears a camera while he cooks

Natural World Facts’ Deep Sea Hub (Leo Richards) — mesmeric deep ocean videos

Wildhope.tv — documentaries of conservation projects around the world

Organizations

AbleGamers — charity promoting accessible gaming

The Nap Ministry (Tricia Hersey) — advocating for rest as resistance against toxic productivity, capitalism, and white supremacy

Bumble Bee Watch — report sightings of native bees

Intersectional Environmentalist — how race, the environment, and justice overlap

Pangea Seed — funding marine conservation through art

Flights of Foundry — con and support for spec fic writers

Washington Trails Association – an amazing repository of trip notes with current conditions from hikers all across Washington