Hunters and Designers
“The first cultural device was probably a recipient.”
(Elizabeth Fisher, Women’s Creation, 1975)
An object designed to support the act of gathering.
The gatherer therefore existed before the hunter.
Gathering, the methodical search, linking, and
preserving of already existing objects often remains overshadowed
by the patriarchal mindset of hunting. It should be at least equally valued,
as collecting is an activity that does not depend on a glorified hero
but is shaped by collective collaboration. Instead of forcefully
creating something new, the surroundings are perceived and utilized
with methodical care, focusing on what already exists.
In the realm of design practice, gathering is an essential part.
We designers gather content for publications,
data for AI tools, fonts, ... .
Gathering visual inspiration is crucial for honing skills and
aesthetic sensitivity. Through examining and selecting designs,
we refine perception and stimulate new ideas.
These ideas form suitable containers for various contents.
Design projects often span diverse topics, extending beyond
the expertise of designers themselves. Collecting allows us
to gather relevant content from various experts, facilitated by the
searchable nature of the web and the ease of access through hyperlinks
to related materials.
“Gathering softly” is a collection of collections in the digital
space and serves to explore collections on the web and their impact
on web-based design. It emerged through intuitive web exploration and
“link hopping” and was curated according to three selection criteria.
First: The website hosts a collection curated from external content, not self-created.
Second: It is not primarily for commercial purposes.
Third: Not only the content but also the design and
architecture of the website are interesting.
The curated collection then becomes the subject of
various archiving experiments aimed at countering the ephemeral nature
of the internet and preserving the websites over time.
The interplay of experiments offers a perspective on web archiving
that foregrounds design and interaction. Multiple combined methods
make websites accessible in different ways, emphasizing various aspects
in fragments and even providing new possibilities.
Everyone is invited to participate in this collection and archive.
You can contribute by suggesting websites hosting interesting
collections, and by sharing archived versions.
Feel free to explore the archiving methods available here,
or propose new approaches to web archiving.
Submit a Collection/Archive
Curated, Designed & Developed by Anna-Lena Oehm
Assisted by Cursor AI
Supervised by Prof. Alexander Roidl
BA-Project 2024, Hochschule Mainz