Again, we have a winner that makes strong use of empty space. But unlike weird feelings, this is a chaotic website. Here, the visitor is not meant to feel in control of the content in the same way it seemed possible on weird feelings. On ninjaweb, it feels like you could fall into a rabbit hole at any moment.
The site is both personal — it shares images of what appears to be the creator’s own home — and academic. As far as I understand, the creator studies journalism, and there are frequent references to course material.* There is also a link to another version of the website with a different layout. All in all, there is a lot going on here.
Let’s attempt to map the chaos.
The index page contains the following links: Journal, Draw-Box, MP3, Writings work, Art, References, Backrooms, Bookshelf, look, rooms, tuto, links, and INDEX (which leads to a version of the site with a different layout). In addition, there are two image-based links without text: “ether,” which requires a password to enter, and “cursed,” a page filled with thousands of tiny images. There is also a link titled “old stuffs here,” which leads to yet another version of the site — not the same one as the INDEX link.
Near the logo at the top of the page, there are more links: a retro web icon of a PC leads to “pc-kuro,” an imitation of an operating system (in the spirit of windows93 — another fantastic website). On the opposite side of the logo are notebooks, where the creator has scanned their own notebooks — creative notebooks. A retro web icon of a tree leads to a sitemap, though I doubt it is complete (it is still very extensive).
Okay — let’s pause and take a breath.
This is where the chaos really becomes apparent: below the main menu links, there are various small images that at first seem like cute, retro web decorations. But on closer inspection, several of them are actually links to entire sub-worlds — still part of the ninjaweb universe.
Take “7amgf,” for example: this is a kawaii-style site, visually distinct from the rest. It forms a j-pop/k-pop universe of its own. As is often the case when entering one of these sub-worlds (the j-pop section, the study pages, the operating system simulation), you are either presented with a flood of links to new places, or a small number of links leading to very extensive sites — mostly still within the ninjaweb universe.
Sometimes you are redirected to places you have already visited through other paths on the site. But I say “seemingly” — because in such a chaotic structure, one should not take for granted that it is truly the same place one is returning to.
Exceptional.
*Ah — now I see where I got the journalism idea from. The creator writes: “hi sorry, this page is about my French lessons at uni about journalism, communication & information.”
winner: ninjaweb
A wild, labyrinthine homepage where small icons hide entire universes and getting lost is part of the experience.