REFERENCE
Visual References
12 design influences. Not mood board — operational references with specific applications mapped to RI projects.
pretext.js
@_jshmllr
Justified editorial typography rendered in 3D browser space, flowing around geometry. Text wraps like a magazine layout but around photogrammetry scans at 60fps.
RI APPLICATION
Douglass "Most Photographed American" (160 photos in 3D with contextual text), Paris 1900 (speech text around models), Du Bois plates (analysis wrapping rotating visualizations), Obelisk (hieroglyphic translations wrapping faces).
TECH
WebGL, Three.js / React Three Fiber, justification & indentation native
Zajno Motion Design
motion.zajno.com
8 core animation principles: easing, offset & delay, fade, transform & morph, masking, dimension, parallax, zoom. The grammar of motion.
RI APPLICATION
Applied to every RI web build. See Foundations → Motion for full breakdown.
TECH
Lenis, Lottie, GSAP, Framer Motion, CSS transitions
Amelia Wattenberger
wattenberger.com
Experimental interactive data visualization. Turning data into meaning — numbers into feelings, datasets into narrative. Scrollytelling with D3 and Svelte.
RI APPLICATION
Douglass spiral of 160 photos (D3), Paris 1900 Wrapped upgrade to interactive, Du Bois plates as interactive D3 viz, Black Wall Street economic data.
TECH
D3.js, Svelte, scrollytelling, React
Generative Garden
@seraphicxc
Lush organic forms growing against black void. CSS/WebGL garden — growth from darkness, abundance from nothing, life that refuses to stop.
RI APPLICATION
Douglass Scene 7 Jubilee (ash-to-dawn, flowers growing), Black Wall Street Door 2 (105 years uninterrupted wealth as garden), Obelisk Phase 4 (organic forms from 3,500-year stone), app landing page (garden grows with usage).
TECH
CSS/WebGL, Three.js particles + organic geometry, L-systems, branching algorithms
Efecto / Particle Dissolve
@pablostanley / efecto.app
Face dissolving and reforming as ASCII/dithered/halftone particles. Identity breaks apart and comes back changed.
RI APPLICATION
Douglass face aging (34→44 dissolves into particles, reforms older), Scene 6 "A SHAM" forms from Constitution ashes, Obelisk hieroglyphics dissolve as erosion, marketing fliers with cross-dissolving faces.
TECH
Custom GLSL shader, particles follow organic branching paths (not random scatter)
Procedural Knowledge Graph
@vamsibatchuk
Organic procedural graph that grows as you explore. Click a node, subtree expands with related entities. Living, breathing information architecture.
RI APPLICATION
radicalimagination.xyz/explore — interactive graph of 87+ Obsidian vault nodes. Start at "Radical Imagination" → 5 branches → click Du Bois → 34 works, Paris, Shirley, Ghana. Click connection lines to surface ideological conflicts AND shared values.
TECH
D3.js force-directed graph, Gemini/Claude RAG, Obsidian vault JSON export, black bg + gold nodes + gold connections
Felt Diorama Scrollytelling
@_jshmllr
"The Great Flattening" — handmade knitted/felt figures telling the story of computing. Warm, tactile, human. The opposite of slick tech. 10.7K views.
RI APPLICATION
RI origin story / About page (7 diorama scenes: True Zion → felt Du Bois at Paris → Obelisk → Pelican case → headsets → letter box → Accra). Beehiiv newsletter headers. Social media carousels. Douglass promo (felt Corinthian Hall, orange yarn flames).
TECH
AI-generated felt scenes (fast, consistent) + commission best ones as real handmade pieces. Hybrid approach.
Animated Gaussian Splats
@plasma_node / 4vd.ai
Hyper-realistic volumetric captures as animated gaussian splats. Spatial video that runs in the browser.
RI APPLICATION
Paris 1900 Hall upgrade (animated visitors in period dress), Douglass Scene 1 (animated Corinthian Hall with flickering gaslight), Greenwood Avenue (alive → massacre → regrowth), documentation captures of every RI installation.
TECH
Research needed: 4vd.ai API/pricing, iPhone LiDAR capture, WebXR/Three.js compat, file sizes
Particle Geometry Playground
WebGL community
Geodesic spheres, DNA helixes, Lorenz butterfly attractors rendered as thousands of particles. Particles form architecture — structure IS the geometry.
RI APPLICATION
Douglass particles forming shapes (stars, flag silhouette, FIRE word, DNA helix in Jubilee), Du Bois spiral diagram as 10,000 orbitally interactive particles, Obelisk gold particles forming hieroglyphic shapes, Juneteenth touch-screen installation.
TECH
Three.js particle system, GPU instancing (10K+), GLSL vertex shader, upgrade ParticleField.tsx
Stewart Brand / Maintenance
"Maintenance: Of Everything"
Book cover IS a tool — protractor, ruler, screw sizes, conversion charts in gold diagrams on dark stock. Double-duty design: beautiful AND functional. Whole Earth Catalog lineage.
RI APPLICATION
RPi Installation Booklet — wiring diagram in gold circuit lines on black cover, GPIO pin numbers along edge like ruler, troubleshooting table on back, one station per spread. 5.5"×8.5", gold foil on black card stock, saddle-stitched. Lives in Pelican case.
TECH
Print design: Figma/InDesign → short-run printing ($15-25/copy). Digital companion: 3D rotating book in Three.js.
Internal Dashboard
@tubikstudio / Wizards
Dark dashboard with layered color-coded bars, vibrant status indicators. Visual operations — replacing markdown with something you can feel.
RI APPLICATION
ops.radicalimagination.xyz — the dashboard we just built. Gold on black, color-coded progress, status chips, Google Calendar integration.
TECH
Next.js App Router, Tailwind, Vercel, JSON config
Arthur Jafa
"Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death"
Montage pacing as emotional architecture. Found footage cut to Kanye's "Ultralight Beam." The rhythm IS the narrative. No explanation — just sequencing.
RI APPLICATION
Emotional sequencing in every multi-scene experience. Douglass 7-scene arc. Paris 1900 Wrapped scroll pacing. Black Star Line 8-station journey. The speed of cuts and the length of pauses are design decisions, not accidents.
TECH
Applied principle — no specific tech. Influences timeline design, scene duration, audio crossfade timing.