The internet is home to many automated systems, specifically "search bots", which spider the web and gather information to be processed by search engines. One particularly interesting search engine is Google Images which returns thumbnails of images relevant to one's search query. If one happens to have several images from a specific URL indexed by Google then searching Google Images for that URL will return a "portfolio" of the URL. Why design a portfolio website when Google does it for you?

I've been interested in "collaborating" with bots for some time and Google Images gave me the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately no graphic design client of mine would buy into the idea for their own websites, so I had to do it with my own.

My "Google Portfolio (Beta)" is a nonexistent Google system that I created which seamlessly integrates Google Images into my artist portfolio. A user entering "stewdio.org" into their browser will be immediately redirected to a Google Image search for "stewdio.org" while a search bot will instead be directed to my Project List page. (This server-side hack allows search bots to easily spider my images, a very important component to this piece.)

The user, now on the Google Images results page, has immediate visual feedback: thumbnails of all my Google-indexed work. Clicking on a thumbnail opens the relevant page of my website in a frame, which is similar in look and feel to Google Images. The consistent colors and branding make it appear as if these two disparate components, Google Images and Stewdio, are operating in tandem. This hack has worked so well in fact that I have received several emails from strangers asking me to sign them up for Google Portfolio.

Of course now no other graphic designers take me seriously... except for 2 or 3 truly nerdy ones who know how to view-source and realize the major hack this thing really is.