Digital Communities
Have you ever fallen in love with an online space?
I blame a fashion marketing class I took in high school where I learned about the world of blogging and lifestyle websites. And to be honest, I think I was more obsessed with the online space than I was with the fashion. Between font design and photography placement, I became fascinated with digital spaces that attempted to tell stories, be accessible, and feel engaging.
Now, my little site is the engine that could. Nothing is where I want it to be yet, but I hope that as I gain more inspiration and build my skillset in coding I can create my own mark online.
Until then…here are some of my favorite digital communities (in no particular order!!):
USAID Storytelling Hub
“USAID transforms. It transforms families, communities, and countries – so they can thrive and prosper. Whether by preventing the next global epidemic, responding to a devastating earthquake, or helping a farmer access tools to grow her business.
USAID is the world’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID’s work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience. The purpose of foreign aid should be ending the need for its existence, and we provide development assistance to help partner countries on their own development journey to self-reliance – looking at ways to help lift lives, build communities, and establish self-sufficiency.
Our efforts are both from and for the American people.
USAID demonstrates America’s good will around the world; increases global stability by addressing the root causes of violence; opens new markets and generates opportunity for trade; creates innovative solutions for once unsolvable development challenges; saves lives; and advances democracy, governance, and peace.
USAID has incredible stories of how it has helped transform the world. USAID’s immersive storytelling experience brings you the stories of transformations.”
Between the beautiful photography and the interactive platform, the Storytelling Hub visually shows how important and impactful sharing stories can be. I highly recommend checking this site out, not only to learn more about how USAID works, but to also see how they activate the autonomy of communities around the world.
Somewhere Good
“Somewhere Good is a social platform designed for people of color to connect around the things we love. A place online where every click is a reflection of you.”
Somewhere Good is such a refreshing digital space, amplifying the voices and platforms of people of color who are rethinking the ways in which we take care of ourselves, how we imagine beauty, art, and fashion, and so much more. In just a few moments I was taken to the POC skin care platform https://www.skin-folks.com/ and the collective space https://spicyzine.com/ — have fun exploring!!
Olivia Bee
“Olivia Bee is a photographer and director living and homesteading in Eastern Oregon, whilst also traveling the globe for her work. She is intrigued by the beauty of everyday life and how the beauty of memories (real or imagined) touches us.”
Hands down one of my favorite photographers, Olivia Bee is quite the definition of romantic, raw, and intimate. Her portraits and landscapes are captivating to say the least and I’m proud to have her photography book Kids in Love on my coffee table! Check out some of her work below.
Zoe Alexandriah
Zoe is a Chicago based photographer who is well versed in using color and black and white digital photography to tell a story. Check out some of her work!
Evoke
“Evoke is a collection of new, optimistic perspectives hosted by Melinda French Gates”.
Melinda Gates shines on this platform, where she amplifies the voices and stories, and themes that structure women’s and girl’s lives. She shares what inspires her, pivotal development and policy critiques and so much more! Check out Evoke here.
Are Y’all Green
“At y'all, we encourage each person to treat others with kindness. This doesn't stop with treating other people kindly but also treating the environment around us with respect. During the last year, we have been challenged in ways we never imagined. We had to get creative with how we sustained an eco-friendly environment around us. And we wanted to share some of that with y’all!”
This website isn’t affiliated with any organization but is instead a collective list of resources to help people engage with their natural environment, in safe, sustainable, and respectful ways. Check it out here. This website is so fun and vibrant, and I love the animated style.
How Many Plants
“How Many Plants was built by a particularly passionate houseplant obsessive, but it's here for all plant parents, seasoned enthusiasts and first-timers alike. By cutting through the disparate and often contradictory advice that seems to grow like weeds around all corners of the internet, HMP strives for clarity. With confidence-boosting plant guides and deep dives into everything from what we mean when we say "bright indirect light" to a very-calm-totally-not-freaking-out identification of the little critters ailing your plants, HMP is here to help you on your journey to plant-based happiness!
Hand-in-hand with a passion for plants comes a love for design. With an eye for interiors, each plant guide highlights handy cues for narrowing in on the "big frilly leaf with wide-load growth potential" perfect for that cozy corner of your bedroom.”
Plant lovers unite! This digital community is dedicated to helping people care for their plants with detailed guides on all types of plant care, interior design, and so much more. I love this website for how interactive it is, and if the homepage isn’t enough to pull you in then I don’t know what will! Check it out here.
The Armenian Genocide
This website is an incredibly exhaustive dive into the Armenian Genocide. All it takes is one finger motion to access an incredible storytelling visual. I think it was made in honor of the 106th anniversary, and you can check it out here!
Fingerspelling with Machine Learning
Looking to learn ASL? This website uses “your webcam and machine learning to analyze your handshapes. Everything is analyzed locally and no webcam data will be sent or stored anywhere.” Let the learning commence, here!
Life in Vogue
This might be my favorite on the list! I can’t even imagine the work that has gone into creating such an interactive and colorful space. Here is a description:
“The Life in Vogue project was launched in 2018 as an opportunity for discussion and exchanges between design and fashion. By inviting artists, designers and companies in the sector to think together about the meaning of the workspace, the initiative has sparked interesting ways of working together and elicited some highly original ideas through installations in the editorial spaces, immediately becoming one of the annual event’s unmissable happenings.
The third edition, titled “Love Letters to Milan”, seeks to continue this outstanding path of dialogue and celebrate the love of Milan – along with the city’s characteristic vitality and creativity – in an exceptional way. Here, the public can visit the rooms of a specially created digital building that reproduces the features of Condé Nast’s headquarters at Piazza Cadorna 5 in Milan. This digital version of the event allows visitors to overcome the limits of space and time imposed in previous editions by the Salone calendar, to experience exclusive contents and live events in a new and completely digital way on a virtual platform.
Life in Vogue is therefore an experience suspended between reality and fiction, where the interpretation of the role of the workplace becomes the starting point for a broader and more complex assessment of contemporaneity, its new platforms, restraints and getaways: into dreams, history and nature, into an enchanted garden where we find a refuge to renew our ideas. This has given rise to the space that Vogue Italia imagined within the project, an invented and surreal dimension: the Inspirational Garden.”
You could easily spend a few hours getting lost in the design processes, history, and detail that went into this project! Check it out here!
The COVID Art Museum
Here is a description from the founders:
“THE IDEA OF THE COVID ART MUSEUM WAS BORN DURING THE FIRST DAYS OF QUARANTINE IN SPAIN. WE NOTICED THAT MANY OF OUR FRIENDS USED ART AS AN ESCAPE DURING CONFINEMENT. WE QUICKLY REALIZED THAT THEY WERE NOT ONLY OUR FRIENDS, DURING QUARANTINE THE ART PRODUCTION WAS EXPLODING. WE LOOKED AT THIS TREND AND ASKED OURSELVES: WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ALL THOSE ARTWORKS THAT PEOPLE ARE CREATING IN THEIR HOMES? THEN THE IDEA CAME UP: A MUSEUM, NECESSARILY DIGITAL, THAT WOULD COLLECT ALL THAT QUARANTINE ART OR COVID ART. ON MARCH 19 WE MADE THE FIRST PUBLICATION AND FROM THEN ON WE HAVEN’T STOPPED, PUBLISHING ARTWORKS DAILY."
This is such an incredible space for those of us who love discovering new artists and if you are an artist yourself you can submit artwork to be featured as well! Check it out here.
Protagonist
This is a platform dedicated to helping people discover literary magazines— my favorite! There is also an app “for readers to discover, read, and love literary magazine stories, poems, interviews, and more.” This is another platform where you all have to do is scroll down (or up depending on your laptop) in order to make the site come alive! Check it out here!
Gabriel Cualladó
This is the official website for Gabriel Cualladó, a 20th-century Spanish photographer. Here you can scroll through endless exhibitions and galleries (in a few different languages) in a fitting black and white theme. Check it out here!
DIFFERENT WRLD
“D I F F E R E N T W R L D is a culture house and creative hub in asheville, nc (opening in 2021!). we are here to connect and support avl’s underground arts and music scene, and to help others cross.
we offer open access to creative equipment and shared resources at the creative hub. we support all working creatives and believe everyone is creative. this is a safe space where you can get what you need and also what you didn’t know you needed.”
There is nothing I love more than a good code font, and an accessible home page that takes me everywhere I want to go. Different Wrld is made with intention and everything they touch shows it. Get lost here!
happy scrolling!
cover image by https://unsplash.com/@racheldeanne