Anybody can construct an internet site with AI. However are you able to construct an internet site that was pre-built by a legendary music producer?
Rick Rubin—who has produced albums by LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys and who just lately authored the celebrated ebook The Creative Act—has partnered with Squarespace to design an ultra-minimalist template that places the content material on a digital pedestal.
The collaboration is a part of a mission known as Squarespace Icons, which gained a 2023 Innovation by Design Award. The thought is as follows: prime artists design an internet site for their very own artistic tasks, then design a Squarespace template impressed by that web site. What you get on this cut price is a website template that allows you to construct on the alternatives made by a few of the world’s most artistic individuals.
[Image: Squarespace]
[Image: Squarespace]
Now, it’s Rubin’s flip to go away his mark on the web—in a radically totally different manner. Rubin’s web site, like his podcast series, is named Tetragrammaton. As Rubin described it in an e mail to Quick Firm, it’s “a quiet web site that will get out of the best way,” or a “response to the overall expertise of the web and the way the web feels right this moment.” (Tetragrammaton hasn’t formally launched but however anybody can entry a prototype by signing up here.)
Tetragrammaton intends to behave as a web-based repository for curated artistic works. The complete website is designed to facilitate a way of discovery, which Rubin says is “the important thing to every little thing.” You may learn articles, poems or quotes, watch a random historic movie (in my case, a documentary about Gaddafi), and take a look at artworks or images. The Images part is randomized, so every time you click on on the web page, you might be introduced with a random duo of pictures. “Each time you take a look at the Images part of Tetragrammaton, you’ve gotten a brand new expertise,” says Rubin. “It’s partaking within the second and creates a way of shortage since when you flip the web page, you might by no means see it once more.”
[Photo: courtesy Squarespace]
When designing the positioning (and the accompanying template), Rubin steered away from many net design developments like using motion and pop-ups. As an alternative, he opted for a website with “a recessive nature,” he says. “It’s all concerning the content material, unencumbered by ornament. An area to set the artwork free, the place the viewer can commune with the works and ponder them.”
The Squarespace template, Transmission, works in related methods. As Albert Chang, design lead at Squarespace, explains it, Transmission has a strong and scalable system of organizing, cataloging, and archiving.
The colour palette skews closely monochromatic, and the whitespace is fairly dominant, which is supposed to let the content material shine. Mentioned content material could be as diverse as you’d like: You may add audio blocks, native video internet hosting (full with mute, loop, pace, and different controls accessible), and even a member’s space for paying guests to entry unique content material.
Each web sites have related vibes, too. Tetragrammaton’s touchdown web page is a clean white area that Rubin likens to a “gallery wall” the place a unique piece of fantastic artwork is “hung” day by day. There aren’t any social media icons. No menu. No emblem. The latter two solely seem once you begin transferring the mouse round, and the social media icons merely don’t exist. “The platform by no means seeks your consideration and hopefully, due to that, it earns your consideration,” says Rubin.
Transmission’s touchdown web page is a little more sensible (the brand and menu are seen by default), but it surely boasts the identical uncluttered aesthetic. “The thought was to interrupt from the accepted guidelines of how issues are accomplished,” says Rubin. “The template opens technical potentialities for extra new experiences on-line.”
