The world of digital media tends to feel a bit cold and impersonal. Is there a way to personalize an interaction between a human being, a printed QR code and a digital story of creativity? Designers Lauren Manning and Camile Wei-Hsin Lin put together The Curiosity Project to find out.

(all images via: Laura Manning Design)

The project involved two distinct yet interconnected layers: print media and digital media. The pair decided to use QR codes to drive visitors to the project blog, but they didn’t want to simply post the typical digitally-generated black-and-white pixels. Instead, they made their QR codes by hand.

Using familiar materials like small magnets, Hershey’s Kisses and Post-It notes, the team constructed analog QR codes that were precise enough to be scanned by handheld mobile devices.

Manning and Lin created the analog QR codes by printing or projecting the image of the code onto their work surface, then placing the “pixels” in the appropriate places. They then made the images into posters and stickers and hung them up around New York City.

Scanning the code would take an observer to The Curiosity Project blog, a simple page which, at the time the project was “live,” had only one post visible at a time. During the project, there was no archive and each post was only viewable for 24 hours. The QR codes they posted around the city encouraged people to visit each and every day for new inspiration.

The blog posts center on topics of creativity in its many forms. From urban art installations to LEGO creations to video projects that seek out the unique stories of individuals, The Curiosity Project covers all types of subjects that will no doubt appeal to a WebUrbanist fan’s tastes.

After the one-day run of each blog post, the designers compiled images from each post and put them into collages. These weren’t just digital combinations of photos, though – they were another play on the analog/digital theme: the digital pictures were transferred to postcards which could then be sent via snail mail.

Has it really been that long? It is hard to believe how much the site has evolved in just one year. Many regular readers have likely noticed a number of significant recent changes to the site including a new design, additional authors and an even greater variety of content styles and topics that have come with this infusion of creative and international contributors. What you might not know is that there are even bigger things in the works, from WebUrbanist reader forums to amazing urban image and video galleries.

The new site design was no small task. Undertaken by the experts at Spyre Studios it is even more awesome than we had hoped for. The new layout provides multiple new ways to navigate content, a beautiful new color scheme, site structure and header image as well as a dynamic new recent articles widget and new slots for thumbnail links to upcoming image galleries. So clearly it is well loved by the WebUrbanist crew … but what do you think? Any feedback, critical or positive, would be much appreciated!

For readers new to the site we have some interesting additional options for browsing our favorite as well as reader favorite articles from the archives. A new search function as well as a widget (located below our subscription area at the top of the page) provide ways to navigate through the best of WebUrbanist to classic articles about 3D street art, amazing tree houses, insane hotel rooms, light graffiti and abandoned wonders.

The new writers have been bringing in a different kind of content that readers are familiar with on this site. From famous and beautiful war and peace memorials and monuments to the history and origins of guerrilla marketing we hope these various additions add a healthy variety to WebUrbanist’s already eclectic mix of articles and the typical style of WebUrbanist. Again, your feedback will help us shape future content so feel free to share your thoughts on these new topics and developments.

Many other websites and bloggers have been a big help this year. There are too many to mention here by far but a special shout goes out to DarkRoastedBlend, Neatorama and MentalFloss in particular. Also, we’d like to thank some of our particularly nifty sponsors: the Spraygraphic community which is dedicated to everything artistic and creative and WonderHowTo which has wonderful DIY video collections.

As to the future: forums, video and image galleries are currently in the making. These will provide more ways for readers to interact both with WebUrbanist content and with other readers. Interesting contributions within the forums will also provide us with inspiration and ideas for future content so everyone – forum contributors as well as regular readers – will be able to benefit from this addition to the site. Image and video galleries will make it easier to navigate dazzling visuals within topics and not just by article.

As always we welcome feedback as well as content ideas and new advertisers – all of which are vital to keeping this scrappy urban website up and running. We would also strongly encourage you to sign up for our feed if you haven’t already so you won’t miss a thing. Have a book or blog you would like publicized that relates to the topics found on WebUrbanist? We also offer readers the chance to become guest authors if they feel they have something to contribute at that level. Feel free to contact us anytime and thanks for making this last year an amazing one and for your continued readership and support of WebUrbanist!