This is an exercise of ingenuity. Pick up a pencil and draw any historical timeline. Highlight specific events and make note of any events that directly influence others in the future. You'll notice that some chains can go indefinitely long. For example, Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination led to World War I which, by way of German discontent and economic collapse, led directly to World War II. The ties from there are obvious.

A line is enduring; a line is forever. But, when you find the beginning, wherever it may be, the flow of it follows a rhythm of bumps and curves where, earlier, it was as straight as an arrow. Take Shaun Inman for example: before sIFR, Inman was a fairly well known designer with a beautiful website. Then came Mint, which has now become synonymous with Inman's extraordinary creativity. There's nothing strange about this — people create applications all the time; people invent when the need arises. Most designers, however, don't reinvent — that is, alter the way people interact with their websites. It usually takes an enormous movement on a grand scale to transform the web in such a way. But, of course, Shaun Inman isn't like most designers.

Heaping it high

Late October of last year, Inman's site metamorphosed much to the shock of normal visitors. Instead of desaturated red, the viewer was greeted by pink (coinciding perfectly with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month by pure chance) stripes, light text on a dark background, and two words: The Heap. The largest words on the page, which at some points exceeded the height of the posts below them, spoke loud and clear to not judge the design on its first impression. Reading further into the depths of Inman's mind triggered a few reactions in me. For one, I had never compared a webpage to the changing landscape of memory; secondly, I had never seen a site's colors transform so effortlessly before. I was in awe that one person could manipulate a site to rely on Time as its only guide through the otherwise murky waters it tread.

And then, Dave Shea proved that color was as much a shifting part of design as the design itself. Time, regulated only by colors; it was phenomenal.

The overall reception was mixed, initially. Critics accused Inman of disregarding readers with poor eyesight; he added a high contrast stylesheet option. Skeptics wondered how long it would take to flop. Inman went until he was bored with the implementation — not the idea.

Four seasons, four variants

ShaunInman.com is in its tenth incarnation; the third in a series of experiments using color and saturation to suggest the age (and arguably relative importance) of its content. Each day of the year is associated with a color. Winter begins with a blue which Spring changes to green. Summer fades to yellow and turns an orange-red by Autumn. As time passes, these colors begin to fade.
—ShaunInman.com: About

He's done it again, you might say. Shaun Inman's broken the mold. It's interesting to notice that saturation and color still play enormous roles. There may even be more to come. But before we muse on what might be, let's look at what has changed,

What arguably bothers me most is the lack of content. I want to be able to read part of a post (at least); I don't want to have to click on the title to figure out what the post is about. Aside from that, the color and organization both set me off slightly. Inman's last design was a virtual rainbow of nostalgia. This site varies between vivid, bright, and burning colors to dull and subdued colors. You really don't know what to expect. At least, on The Heap, you had a meter by which you could measure anything from the color of the text to its original color and judge how old it was at that point. By those standards, Inman's experiment fails. There's no way for me to really recognize where a desaturated color falls into a spectrum of a myriad other colors. It simply doesn't work.

As for the organization, the page (which seems to be shifting sometimes) has an enormous amount of space and very little content for all of that. The borders, the almost indiscernable text, the elements floating in the middle of nowhere (the Mint badge for one), and the logo far off to the side...it seems a vicious way to tear apart The Heap and scatter it rather than reinventing it. There's no reason to this rendition of Inman's site, other than experimentation. Frankly, it's quite dull when you get over the time-specific background colors. I'm very honest when I say that The Heap was, by far, the better implementation.

Out of my thought spectrum

But is it meant to be judged on visual quality alone? There's not much content, or aethestics, or contrast, or significant talent involved to back up the website. But there is vision. Shaun Inman has an enormous amount of vision, and I respect him for that. Where his new website fails, his ideas catch hold, and that, ladies, gentleman, children, and friends; that is untempered mortal fury and human ingenuity.