demonic.com
A recipe for demonic.com, 3.o:
Take 1 large chunk of graphic design savvy
Add 2 parts of creative web design and dash of editorial outrage
Blend with a liberal sprinkling of tutorials and demonstrations
Garnish with textures, buttons and trippy astronomical graphics
Chill.
A note: Any metaphor can be pushed too far, and for that reason, this review will not go on to say that demonic.com "rises" above the majority of independently created design websites, or that it "whips" its competition, or that it's "fucking delicious like a batch of chocolate-chip brownies." Although it does, it does, and it is.
Demonic.com is one of the bold new fringes of the Web's frontier: it's independent, it's not-for-profit, and it's high quality, a combination as rare as a rap-savvy leprechuan.
The site's breadth is enormous. Demonic.com features web graphics, an art gallery, reviews, a portal, links and more, and it's all of good (or better) quality. And while it's easy to complain about the lack of depth on some parts of the site (there's only one Web design template currently posted, for example), it's also easy to imagine how this will be remedied by time and consistent hard work.
Time takes care of itself. And the site's administrator and creator, Monika DeMire, seems to have no fear of hard work; indeed, the site bears signs of having been tweaked, updated and polished many, many times over.
Demonic.com also has a links collection that should serve as a shining example to the shambling mass of other personal websites out there. Most sites offer a random pastiche of links to sites that vary wildly in quality, and, after a certain period of time, begin to become overgrown with 404s. Demonic.com offers visitors a tight selection (HTML of the moment, movie of the moment, book of the moment) that is regularly updated, and, with the exception of the movie Elizabeth, is in indisputably good taste. The other design sites that demonic.com has linked to as of late include Phong and Alex D.G, and both are worth the trip.
Demonic.com is more than just a well-constructed, frequently updated personal page. It's emblematic of the best the Web has to offer. It's well-designed, it features thoughtful original content, and it has a cool mouse cursor thingie that trails colorful stars behind it. Click on it.
— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)
