K10k.net

April 20, 2002 2:07 AM

K10k.net has relaunched. That is all.
posted by Down10 (60 comments total)

The wait was worth it. The Good Vibe Provider™ indeed.
posted by riffola at 2:17 AM on April 20, 2002

Wow. I thought that whole pixel-design thing couldn't get any better -- it just got a lot better. Way to go guys!
posted by josh at 2:18 AM on April 20, 2002

Love the customize feature.
posted by riffola at 2:21 AM on April 20, 2002

That site is a usability nightmare, but it sure is pretty.
posted by RylandDotNet at 2:26 AM on April 20, 2002

Lot of relaunches and rebirths and suchlike lately. Is the needle swinging back into the green for the webthing?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:28 AM on April 20, 2002

Thought k10k was down for so long moreso due to hardware reasons (they're hosted on overhyped MediaTemple). Anyhow, yeah the new site looks great.

Is Issue 0115 not working for anyone else?
posted by hobbes at 2:38 AM on April 20, 2002

*grunt*.. can't... read... text... Can't... resize... fonts.... Eyes.... bleeding... Urk.

Honestly. What makes people think that small equals readble? I'd love to explore the site, see what it's about, but I'm really put off by having to give myself a headache in the process.
posted by John Shaft at 2:38 AM on April 20, 2002

There are a few bugs, I can't view the issue either, and the news.asp page is showing news from 2000, but I guess these are just shakedown bugs.
posted by riffola at 2:40 AM on April 20, 2002

Oops it's the "very old" tab, never mind.
posted by riffola at 2:44 AM on April 20, 2002

Nobody thinks small = readable -- small looks nice, which is the whole thing with k10k.

Oh man, it is so purty.....
posted by josh at 3:08 AM on April 20, 2002

just checked it 2 days ago i swear, blinked and oh, look. too bad i'm too drunk to read at the moment but yeah, reprezent!

they also have a big banner for fwis zine, it's one of my favorite things to look at at present. check it out it's worth your time.
posted by elle at 3:10 AM on April 20, 2002

I clicked on the "what the fuck's going on tab" and it brought up a new section marked "click for ten more sections", so I clicked that, and one hundred tiny windows moved across the screen all written in Semi-DemiPixel saying "USE PENCILS YOU TROGLODYTE".
posted by skylar at 3:27 AM on April 20, 2002

I'm still just getting the "Kaliber 1000 is still not quite there yet, but it's coming" front page.
What gives?
posted by jzed at 4:08 AM on April 20, 2002

Even more distracting clutter, same poor navigation, scruffy HTML, same tiny text, similar content, same tired old style (oh but with some colour). What on earth have they been doing all this time? It's hardly cutting edge stuff.

For me K10k represents much of what's bad about the Web design 'community' - too much trend-following, fawning mutual appreciation and designing for other designers; not enough appreciation of genuinely good design that communicates worthwhile content effectively.
posted by malevolent at 5:32 AM on April 20, 2002

For me K10k represents much of what's bad about the Web design 'community' - too much trend-following, fawning mutual appreciation and designing for other designers; not enough appreciation of genuinely good design that communicates worthwhile content effectively.

Go to bed. Too much design for designers? The pt. of the site is inspiration through design for the purpose of designing! Perhaps you could show us some genuinely good design? I am not sure that the term "scruffy html" should ever be used again. Ever.
posted by wklang at 6:04 AM on April 20, 2002

'the purpose of design'? Is this what we call good design?

The purpose of design goes far beyond pixels, gifs, flash, and graphics - good on them for relaunching, but they continue to pursue a path that gives us a bad name.
posted by mook at 6:34 AM on April 20, 2002

oh they linked to me... hehe. They do know what good design is!
posted by mook at 6:53 AM on April 20, 2002

Nice. Not really too different from what was there before, but nice.
posted by iconomy at 6:57 AM on April 20, 2002

Whoa mook I didn't know that was your site, excellent stuff.
posted by riffola at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2002

oh they linked to me... hehe. They do know what good design is!
posted by mook at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2002

oh they linked to me... hehe. They do know what good design is!
posted by mook at 7:00 AM on April 20, 2002

sorry for the multiple posts, airport connection went down...
posted by mook at 7:01 AM on April 20, 2002

Nice to have 'em back...purty, in an obsessive-compulsive angular kind of way...but...I was naively hoping for something a little more rash, brash, and organic.
posted by Opus Dark at 7:53 AM on April 20, 2002

with the exception of the news section, i could never figuire out what was going on there.. it's a usability nightmare and the text is too small.. i've always hated design sites like these.

i'm really glad to see them back.
posted by lotsofno at 8:03 AM on April 20, 2002

Wow. I had never seen k10k.net before. Looks like it will take days to peruse. I especialy like Fill Bard's Wall.
posted by Argyle at 8:14 AM on April 20, 2002

Nice. I still prefer k10k.com.
posted by boardman at 8:45 AM on April 20, 2002

Nice. I still prefer k10k.com.
posted by boardman at 8:46 AM on April 20, 2002

I feel almost embarassed saying this, because obviously a lot of work went into this site, but... I can't even figure out what its about. Also, color me crazy, but the not being able to read thing kind of bothers me.
posted by xammerboy at 8:56 AM on April 20, 2002

clever site: yes
clever design: no

never been to site before, and based on what i've seen (or what i cant see) i dont think ill be going back there.
Dont be afraid to use a bigger size font my thick rimmed glasses wearing, Starbucks drinking, funky T-Shirt wearing Apple mac designer.

I reckon 73%* of users wont be coming back either



* 86% of stats are made up on the spot
posted by monkeyJuice at 9:05 AM on April 20, 2002

Doesn't work in 800 x 600. Grrrrrr.
posted by metrocake at 9:39 AM on April 20, 2002

I reckon 73%* of users wont be coming back either

I think 100% of design parasites will be coming back, but the site seems less and less relevant to the 'design community' (by that I mean a broad community of designers, not just visual/graphic designers, or stylists).
posted by mook at 9:56 AM on April 20, 2002

It's like a concert pianist playing scales: long on technique, but short on substance.
posted by plaino at 10:00 AM on April 20, 2002

well, i *was* going to go off on a rant here about how design is about accessibility, and k10k.net is more about art....

but i'm at 800x600, so my kind isn't welcome there.
posted by jcterminal at 10:17 AM on April 20, 2002

excellent stuff. too bad about the 800x600 though.
posted by arrowhead at 10:27 AM on April 20, 2002

I'm not a fan of the k10k design community, I think they are snobs for the most part and have some bizzare ideas of what is GOOD or BAD design. It's all about who scratches who's back it seems.

Another site which is very similar and just as snobby is Design is Kinky which is based out of Aussieland.

*yawn*
posted by Dav0xor at 10:31 AM on April 20, 2002

Real high end design snobs have very high resolution monitors, which are always set to something higher than 1600x1200. Something like this is unreadable on our excellent screens. If they were really good enough for snobs like me to care about, they would design for my screen and its hefty acreage.
posted by donkeymon at 11:19 AM on April 20, 2002

i love their answer to the "can i freely steal from k10k" question in the faq: ...Go ahead and fuck it up on your copycat ill-conceived shit site. Yes, and please ask us to do all your dodgy webprojects, it's ok. We have nothing else to do. You might get our bulldog lawyers up your ass, but hey - we warned you... Bloody thieving sons of bitches. ha.
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 11:58 AM on April 20, 2002

Perhaps you could show us some genuinely good design?
Is that an "I'll bet you couldn't do better" comment? Surely not.
I've always wanted to build a site highlighting the kind of real-world, creative, practical design work that actually improves the Web for its users yet is so often neglected, but I doubt I've got the time. It might have to wait until I'm single or rich.

I am not sure that the term "scruffy html" should ever be used again. Ever.
Feel free to substitute an alternative adjective if it bothers you. I felt the comment was valid, unlike their HTML.
(a cheap shot, but impossible to resist!)
posted by malevolent at 12:07 PM on April 20, 2002

There's no denying that the K10K people have always invested a great deal of work into what they do, but I personally stopped visiting all the design blogs and such long ago. I'll admit for free that my sense of Web design is probably lacking, but I don't need people ministering to me about how cool they, their friends, and all their efforts are the proverbial highest rung in the ladder of the craft/genre/industry.

I was never inspired by such a practice, rather the exact opposite. When I was reading the aforementioned sites, my work was never personal or unique since I was constantly striving to *be* them and pulling my hair out in frustration as a result. So one day, I deleted all my links from my Favorites and never looked back. My work is still hella lame, but at least I'm confident in knowing that I didn't have to rip other people off to achieve it.

Should everyone stop visiting "trendy" sites? I can't decide that without being heckled, but I for one can't take much more of the "Me too!" design stencil of huge resolutions, pixel fonts, and Flash for the sake of Flash.

Not that my opinion is redeemable for prizes or anything.
posted by JoyG_n Josh at 12:17 PM on April 20, 2002

Tossing this one out...K10k isn't the only site out there that's not 800 x 600-friendly. Deviantart.com isn't, either, and they're definitely not a "design community" site, per se.

What's up with this? Is this a trend? Because if so, I'm totally screwed -- my really bad eyes can't handle 1024 x 768. (By "really bad" I mean I literally can't see more than an inch in front of my face without my contacts or thick glasses. I've been wearing glasses of some kind since I was 8 months old.)

Heeelllppp....
posted by metrocake at 12:29 PM on April 20, 2002

For what it's worth -- I don't understand all this bi-atching about the 'design community' and how snobby/snooty it all is. It seems to me that it's the "real designers," with their high-res screens and their blah-blah-blah about usability, that are being snobs here. The guys at k10k are having fun and doing a damn good job of it; they're helping other people have fun too.

If you want snobby, visit jakob nielsen or Communications Arts, and don't worry about k10k -- they're too busy making fonts and cool t-shirts and having fun generally. This business of how the folks at k10k are crap designers (just plain not true) is just as lame as the recent self-obsessed blogging-about-blogging that's sweeping the web. As a web designer I'd never build a site for a client that looked like k10k. But there's no need to enforce professionalism on folks who could care less and who are doing something great and laudable instead.
posted by josh at 12:43 PM on April 20, 2002

hear hear josh.

metrocake, arrowhead, jcterminal -- you can make k10k 640x480 friendly via the round, smiley-faced 'customize' button at the top of the screen.
posted by muta at 12:57 PM on April 20, 2002

muta beat me to it - but you can click the "make your own 'lil k10k" smiley at the top to set your preferences - including JN style blue underline links. Not that I think that is the best way for them to approach usability, seems a little bitter.

Is it just me or does the 'medium setting' take one back to the 1024 size?
posted by mook at 1:08 PM on April 20, 2002

how did you figure out they were snobby? did they snub you at a party or something?
posted by Hackworth at 1:21 PM on April 20, 2002

I quite like the design in a way.

I'd guess they checked their site stats and can see that most of their users are set to 1024 x 768 or above. If that's the case then they're designing to their audience.

By having a customise feature, they're also allowing for anybody else that wants to hang around once they've surfed in. I think the customise thing is nicely done, but for me at least [IE 6] it didn't make the text size any bigger, neither does increasing the size through my browser options. It at least gets rid of the horizontal scroll.

Personally I won't be visiting again, because the content is not of any great interest to me, but it's popular, or was pre-closedown, so it'll probably be popular again.
posted by selton at 1:48 PM on April 20, 2002

Well, whether a design is "good" or "bad" depends on your point of view. They claim to be a "design" site. Design, as in print design or web design, means presenting information in an attractive (engaging, challenging, affecting) and accessible (legible, understandable) way. They've got the attractive bit, but not the accessible bit. That pushes it into the realm of pure art in my book, and not very good art, in my (admittedly uneducated) opinion. They've failed to meet my criteria for good design. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the site - it's certainly fun to look at in a "ooh, aah, look at the shiny object" sense - but there's way too much stuff on the screen all at once.
posted by RylandDotNet at 1:53 PM on April 20, 2002

- it's certainly fun to look at in a "ooh, aah, look at the shiny object" sense - but there's way too much stuff on the screen all at once.

That's exactly how I felt visiting the site. Almost like a kid in a candy store with a couple of coins in his pocket trying to decide what to buy. Small doses. Baby steps. (But I like it and will go back, so thank you for posting the link!)
posted by gummi at 1:58 PM on April 20, 2002

They've got a bunch of stuff in little frame-like thingies but no way to scroll to read it all. Bad.
posted by kindall at 2:53 PM on April 20, 2002

I didn't post the K10k link because I cared what the Slash-dot posters and Jakob Nielsen parrots thought about the site. (They all sound alike after a while.) It's all just an excuse to bitch anyways. As far as I know, K10k is about 10% as "snobby" as the posters here on MetaFilter and /.

I posted the link here because K10k has a lot of fans, and its relaunch has been one of the more anticipated events on the Web.

Also, I fail to see what on K10k is not "accessable," whatever the hell that means. It's a self-described "designer playground," not a research laboratory.
posted by Down10 at 3:23 PM on April 20, 2002

we were promised some nice php, we get asp. we were promised a store, we aint got one. its just gifs and iframes, same as before with some color. this nearly annoys me as much as those css people who refuse to use "tables"... instead using divs and then looking for hacks to float my div here etc... use tables damn it, they work. stop annoying us. i prefered it with the coming soon pics... at least i could read the text
ps. i love small text :)
posted by semper at 3:52 PM on April 20, 2002

about time!

all argument about design and usability aside, the people behind k10k are fun and don't take themselves nor their site too seriously... which can't be said about a lot of places. *cough*

It's the most personal of all the "design portals" -- and that's why it appeals to a lot of people.

And I think the post here is more than appropriate. MeFi and k10k are related in many ways. mschmidt has been a contributor to MeFi... long before a lot of the complaining posters showed up.

Hell, even Zeldman is an author at k10k... so they do have varied opinions and ideas about design... which is another reason why they rule.
posted by mkn at 3:53 PM on April 20, 2002

:: beaming :: I'd actually tried the "smiley-face" button earlier, and it didn't work -- it's working fine, now... :)
posted by metrocake at 4:31 PM on April 20, 2002

mschmidt has been a contributor to MeFi... long before a lot of the complaining posters showed up.

Seniority gets to determine what's good and what isn't? :)

I'm not complaining about the post itself, far from it, it's a great link. I realize it's just a fun experimental type thing for designers, I'm not saying it has to conform to the gospel according to Jakob. I just don't think it's good design. I find it cluttered and confusing. Cluttered and confusing is bad design. If you think k10k is good design, that's cool, but I'll thank you to not get persnickety and point out who's been on MeFi the longest when I disagree with you.
posted by RylandDotNet at 4:50 PM on April 20, 2002

[D]esign == [A]rt + [U]sability.

D can be a very large number even as U approaches negative infinity. The values you choose are determined by purpose (and ability).
posted by willnot at 5:28 PM on April 20, 2002

I didn't post the K10k link because I cared what the Slash-dot posters and Jakob Nielsen parrots thought about the site

Mefi has editors who control the content of conversation now? That's news to me.

They all sound alike after a while

As do the "screw you, this is a fancy design" folks.
posted by owillis at 7:48 PM on April 20, 2002

Down10, you left out the CSS-huggers and web-standards whores in your summary dismissal of everyone who disagrees with you. I feel ignored : (

:sniff:

I'm going to go cry in a corner now. Down10 won't play Snark with me :.(
posted by Ptrin at 8:19 PM on April 20, 2002

....im happy to have k10k back..... knowing that there are people who are willing to create something that is visited by so many throughout the world -without financial reward for the (i think i can assure you) extensive technical efforts gives me hope. nice job cool cats. 1024 real cool with me.
posted by specialk420 at 11:33 PM on April 20, 2002

hey wait... did some of you have usability, content, and web design concerns? because I heard k10k's admins were holding off on making anything until everyone reached the consensus that it was the right thing to have on the internet.

in fact, every one of you who make or post something on the internet should probably cut it out. after all, not everyone agrees that it's appropriate. and what the hell's the point of making something if it doesn't please everybody?
posted by chrisege at 11:18 PM on April 21, 2002

Look, it's great to have k10k back (any labour of love is good to have around), and they're perfectly entitled to do whatever they want with the site, but there's nothing wrong with people voicing criticisms. The fact k10k has polarised opinions probably means they're doing something right.

Maybe we should all say nice things and think of fluffy kittens. Ahhh...
posted by malevolent at 3:17 AM on April 22, 2002

"That site is a usability nightmare, but it sure is pretty."

Pretty crappy?! Yeah, that's what I thought too.

"The fact k10k has polarised opinions probably means they're doing something right."

... or just a lot of things wrong.

K10k.net is a pixelated monstrosity perpetuated by bored web designers. It feels like a modern take on the beast that used to be the old ICQ site. Yes, there is a lot of design, but design does not equal beauty. Their concept of design would make slaves of us, and it's truely hideous that so many people buy into their cult...

Design and usability are not mutually incompatible things. Some people understand this. Noah Grey gets it. You can too...
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:04 PM on April 28, 2002