Breaching the Fourth Wall

I’ve been recently discovering Pageflakes, a customizable website which allows you to keep RSS feeds and widgets in one place.  During my compilation of RSS feeds, I ran across the following useful website.

Live Design is an online magazine which writes about notable events and technology in the live entertainment business.  The latest tools for lighting, audio, automation, staging, pyrotechnics, and rigging are featured and staffing changes at the world’s leading manufacturing and rental companies are included as well.  Designers and engineers are often interviewed about their latest projects and it is a major way universities market their graduate and undergraduate programs to potential students.  Live Design is a useful resource for potential students looking to find a long-term program or professionals who are looking to become certified in specialty or brush up with a master class.

Employment opportunities are listed on the site in addition to educational ones.  To the far right of the main page are several search fields for finding conferences, job openings, shows of interest, and useful online tools for technical theatre folks. Pretty snazzy, eh?

Yet the site’s strength stems from its streamlined and accessible content.  Finding information by subject, popularity, or date is easy and segmented into logical categories.  At the same time, popular or particularly noteworthy articles are posted on the site’s main page, meaning that readers don’t inadvertently miss something newsworthy.

The only setback from the print version of the magazine is the photos. I’m a visua person and love seeing designs and layouts in full page, high resolution spreads. The small images don’t do the original photos or designs justice. Perhaps its publishers need to keep some reason to encourage readers to subscribe to the print magazine as well…

Despite a few nitpicky visual setbacks, Live Design is a site worth bookmarking and keeping tabs on.