Harpe 45 (Luke Archer)
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Q: Why do you have a Brutalist Website?
A: Being in the unique position as the designer, programmer, and co-runner of the art space I could do what I wanted for this website. Instead of thinking about what we required, designing it and then programming it, I decided to just programme what we needed as I went along, and this is what we ended up with. Each element was added pragmatically as the need for it arose, and for one reason or another this design took shape. Aside from this, I think it's necessary to address the term "brutalist websites", and what it means for graphic design. Looking through the selection on this website it becomes clear that there is not a "brutalist style" of website, in reality these sites just prescribe to a different set of design values than the agency-designed-and-built-modify-a-commercial-wordpress-template garbage that we've seen over the last few years. These design values are just more closely tied to what is happening within non-digital realms of graphic design (see Design Observer, "How to be Ugly", 2007, and Eye Magazine, "Cult of ugly", 1993). Thankfully web design is catching up with it's print counterpart, but because The Washington Post doesn't have to critical tools to recognise this they mistakenly labelled it as ugly and difficult to use. The bigger question for me is now that we've established that this is happening, how can we further develop a critical discourse larger than saying all of these interestingly designed websites are just “brutalist”?

Q: Who designed the website?
A: Luke Archer (Omnigroup)
Q: Who coded the website?
A: Luke Archer (Omnigroup)
Q: With what kind of editor?
A: I use Coda, but it's not significant.
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http://harpe45.ch