Week 8
Snooping on Michael Ciccarelli (@minorvillan)
A big part of my design research is looking at websites that look cool and achieve the same things that I want to achieve. I've always loved the Safdie Bros' website elara.world, which hosts a radio, a shop, and Josh and Benny Safdie's various film projects. I wanted to look into who made it and how, so I dug through the website's credits and found two names: Michael Ciccarelli, and Santangelo Williams. Santangelo designed the site, and he also has (or had) a substantial following on instagram, so I decided against reaching out to him. Michael on the other hand didn't attract a lot of attention, and I had a hunch based on his Instagram posts I assumed he had something to do with the website's development. Lo and behold, he did. I DM'd him on instagram, and he told me about things that I had never heard of before, but are ubiquitous to me now. After some back-and-forth, trying to figure out the right questions to ask, he gave me the riddle of tech that I would spend the next year and a half deciphering: "The site was built with React and Next.js, we did the CMS with Sanity.io and hosted the radio content on Digital Ocean." What the hell does all that mean?
While I was researching elara.world's tech stack, I found Michael's linkedin, which told me he graduated the New School a few years ago for design and had worked at a company before going freelance with web design and development. His senior thesis at the New School was a survey he sent out to friends and fellow New School students asking participants to illustrate their own perceptions of NYPD. No surprise to me, most people drew pigs wearing blue hats.
3 Dream Creative Agencies
For all the companies listed below, I would take a design, research, or web development position in a heartbeat.
- Ogilvy - a large ad agency
- Basement.studio - a small creative agency who specializes in web design.
- Wieden + Kennedy - One of the best creative agencies in the country.