The Sandberg Institute Wesbite and Building
The Sandberg Institute is a design and visual art college in the Netherlands. We are having a hard time picking what we like best - their program, website, or ‘Baroque Branding’ building.
The building was made in response to a directive that the art school needed to be raking in more money to cover costs. Not content to solve this in a crass way, the school turned it into a design question for the students and faculty, like any other make believe project. The building takes its cue from projects such as the Million Dollar Homepage - here advertisers can buy advertising by the square centimeter for a set amount of days, and the whole display is an ever-changing swirl of logos moving and competing together - a kind of baroque or ironic advertising.
Their website is no less impressive, and is a perfect response to its medium. A grid-like set of options meets the viewer, that looks like the first computer games made in labs in the UK. As the cursor moves over them, they open to reveal 3D style options more akin to 1980s video games such as Asteroid, or the faux military displays of movies such as War Games, perhaps.
The website’s various beeps and electronic clicks are periodically changed by electronic musicians, so the site you see today mightn’t be the one you find tomorrow. Check it out - and perhaps enroll to come up with your own magic design solutions.
