This year, I became very aware of the art that surrounds me. It began with my addiction to vinyls, which then opened the window to canvas, prints, photography, etc. I was always somewhat art motivated, but I feel this year I really did my best to actively participate in this community. I’ve gone to a couple of shows the past couple of months and I have enjoyed taking pictures of the shows and sharing these pictures with my flickr community. Along with my participation in the arts, I have also been reading a lot more designer blogs. Some of my favorites are listed to your right, in my blogroll. Thanks to my addiction to those blogs, I’ve become a lot more aware of the work that people put into websites, apartments, workspace, anything.

One of my favorite websites of the year is the Good Things Should Never End site. It’s a never-ending journey. Well, it ends, but it’s fun to go through all the interactive games and the drawings are super kawaii! Well, Zune and it’s websites are my second choice for site [s] of the year. First, I became an addict for Zune-Arts.net, which hosts creative videos and art. I’ve been all over the place these past couple of weeks, that I hadn’t visited the site in a while. Well, they’ve changed their style, and it’s very reminiscent of the Good Things site. Check out the screen shot.

The characters are all lined up and slowly scroll through. You can click on them to see the video they’re in, or the prints. Clicking on them will also lead you the artist’s page and some downloadable content. To check out this site, follow this link: Zune-Arts dot net

Finally, the new Zune software has added a very cool feature that allows me to share a “zunecard” with my friends. You don’t need to own a Zune to use the software, so I recommend you download it and check out how pretty it is. An example of the zunecard is also located to your right. That design comes directly from the Zune website, but there are plenty of other designs out there. Well, when I went to log on to the online Zune ’social’, I noticed they’ve added a Zune Journey site. It’s slightly interactive also, and it’s very similar to the Good Things site too. Check out the screenshot too:

With your mouse, just click on the page and hold. Move forward or backwards to go through the different Zune features. I hope I’m not making things confusing, but the opening image is a Zune player, the menu includes; music, videos, radio, podcasts, pictures. When you scroll through the site, each menu option has it’s own world. As you can see in the screenshot above the podcasts world has GIANT stars.

Well, this post went in a completely different direction and I no longer remember what the point was. I definitely wanted to share the great job Zune is doing. I’m going away now… sorry this lost its point.