Not since Euclid was shuffling sandals along the streets of ancient Alexandria has a man had a passion for shapes to match Dave Connis' love of the hexagon.
When the 24-year-old Chattanoogan first stumbled across his six-sided muse, he was searching for inspiration to hone the design of Musetic, a social networking website he built to share original creations by artists of all types, from poets and painters to filmmakers and flutists.
Categories
On Musetic, creators can post content under several categories. Here are some examples of what would end up where: * Art: Paintings, sculpture, poetry, furniture, glass blowing, pen and ink, murals, stained glass * Design: Graphics, textiles, fashion, product design, architecture, infographics, interior design, interactive designs (games/websites) * Imagery: Photography, comics, graphic novels, illustrations, graffiti, tattoos, sketches, concept/fan art * Sound: Field recordings, singles, spoken word poetry, audio dramas, audio books, narrated stories, foley recordings, podcasts, lectures * Video: Music videos, animation, short/feature films, TV pilots, documentaries, episodic videos, comedy sketches, dance routines * Writing: Poetry, short stories, novellas, first chapters, blog posts, craft articles, essays Sign up Join Musetic's rank at musetic.com/register/ Down the road Here are some of the features Musetic's creators plan to implement as the site grows: * Social media buttons for creators * Comment editing * Comment notifications * Tags for inappropriate -- Not Safe For Work -- content * Additional notifications, such as when your submission reaches the front page * Search * Private messaging
During preliminary work on the site last fall, he and his East Ridge-based co-founder, Joshua Chandler, focused their designs on typical website layouts in which information is displayed as quadrangles on a grid. Then Connis happened across a site that threw caution -- and right angles -- to the wind, displaying its content with six sides. Instant infatuation.
"I was pretty attached to hexagons ... kind of unhealthily attached," Connis recalls, laughing.
He began converting Chandler, 26, to join the revolution. During their online brainstorming sessions about how to approach building the Musetic site, he randomly would send single-word messages that read simply: "Hexagons!"
Eventually, Chandler gave in.
"I said, 'I'll try it out and see what it looks like' ... and I kinda liked it," Chandler says, his voice a slower, more methodically paced countterpoint to Connis' bubbling enthusiasm.
"By 'kinda,' you mean you loved it," his partner insists, laughing.
Connis admits his enthusiasm for a polygon may seem a bit over-the-top, but when you're building a social network for the creative set, designing outside the box -- quite literally -- just makes sense.
"I think a unique design speaks to what we're about and how we're doing it," he says.
A different look
When it loads, Musetic's appearance immediately sets it apart from the social media pack. Rather than a splay of squares and rectangles that defines the look of networks such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, Musetic posts are large, round-cornered hexagons floating on a stark white background.
But design is only the most immediately apparent characteristic that sets Musetic apart from other social networks. Instead of limiting themselves to a single artistic medium, like YouTube or Instagram, Chandler and Connis have thrown open the doors to all kinds of artists. The goal, they say, is for Musetic to become an artistic Garden of Eden, with short stories, stained-glass creations and documentary films existing in lion-and-lamb tranquility alongside music videos and oil paintings.
At any given time, a blog about double-exposure photography could sit next to a DJ's thumping house track that's cheek and jowl with a feature on a designer's workstation made from polished concrete.
Still, the traditional trappings of social networks are all there. Users can create profiles, browse posts and "up-vote" or comment on content they think is interesting. Entries that receive enough praise are elevated to spotlighted positions on the front page.
Although anyone can join Musetic, only original content is allowed to be posted. Those who wish to contribute to Musetic must submit a request to be named a "creator," which Chandler and Connis approve after looking at their work. As a result, there are no pet videos on Musetic. No celebrity gossip. There are no reposts or retweets. The site is a two-link chain: Content creator to content consumer.
Jaime Barks, a 33-year-old Cleveland, Tenn.-based painter and mixed media artist, created an account just after the site's Jan. 7 launch. She says she was intrigued by the idea of a place for art to be shared for its own sake rather than to sell. On Jan. 14, she uploaded the site's most-popular post, "I Still Believe in Anchors," a painting paired with an explanatory essay about the work.
Even if the post hasn't resulted in a flood of comments between Barks and other Musetic users, she says it's driving a lot of traffic to her blog, where her other art is on display and for sale. That's a sign, she says, that Musetic and its hexagons are doing their job.
"I think Musetic is such a cool idea," she says. "I really like the idea of a platform to share creative works ... getting out there and connecting with people and sharing what you're working on and seeing what other people are doing. It's a really great concept."
Planting a garden
The seeds of Musetic were sown in early 2014 after Connis, who moonlights as an author and musician, tried to share a music video he'd created on the social networking and news site Reddit. His intentions were innocent enough -- to drum up an audience for his songs -- but he was surprised by the vehemence of the community's response to the post.
"I had a bunch of people yelling at me because it was self-promotion," he says. "I was like, 'OK, sorry. I didn't know,' and I took it off."
Instead of being soured by the experience, he was inspired. A question kept rattling around in his head: How are artists connecting with their audience in the Internet age?
On Reddit, even the most popular posts often were by users who had nothing to do with creating the content they shared. YouTube was a little better, but its mammoth proportions made it something of a "super big black hole," he says, where original content often ended up buried under a mountain of cat videos.
"You're basically putting it there and saying, 'Thanks, guys. See you later,'" he says. "There really wasn't a place for everybody to come together."
So he decided to create one.
The Musetic multi-medium platform, designed for creators and emerging artists,
appears as hexagons on the website.From the onset, Musetic was designed as a place where content creators not only are encouraged to share their work but to put it in the closest possible proximity to their audience.
"Without that engagement, art isn't shared," Connis says. "As a creator, when you're able to experience the reactions of the people you're making the art for, it makes it all the more worthwhile to make it.
"Mostly, we're removing the isolation of creating on the Internet. That's one of the big, big goals, encouraging community around what's being made instead of just consuming what you've made."
Opposites attract
With a degree in community development from Covenant College, Connis was confident in his ability to drum up a user base for Musetic, but he lacked web development skills to build the site's infrastructure. Last summer, he posted a job listing online that connected him with Chandler, a self-taught coder.
They were well-matched, but their personalities are night and day. Connis speaks at length and with obvious passion and enthusiasm about Musetic's overarching philosophy. Chandler is more grounded in the realities of making the site work, and his responses come at a slower, more measured cadence.
But Connis and Chandler say their differences are good for each other and the site. Connis admits that he's prone to grasping at wild ideas -- hexagons! -- while Chandler serves as an anchor to keep him grounded.
"It was a good, mutual-benefit situation," Connis says.
All original
The decision to turn Musetic into a forum exclusively for sharing original work was based on the idea of promoting more lively discussions between artists and their audience. Connis says that concept has slowed the site's growth compared to platforms such as Reddit that allow unrestricted posting by all users.
Five weeks after launch, the site has been visited by a little more than 1,200 unique users, about 10 percent of whom have created accounts. But those 130-odd account holders have posted a wealth of content. The rows of soft-cornered hexagons on the site's front page tend to represent a wide range of artistic media.
So far, Chandler says, Musetic has a ratio of two users for each creator.
"I think that's higher than Reddit," he says. "We're doing what we set out to do. Quality definitely beats out quantity, for sure."
While most of Musetic's network is comprised of Chattanoogans such as photographer Will Malone and violinist Christopher Williams, the user base has international members as well. One of Musetic's most-prolific posters is French graphic designer Loic Prou, who has uploaded more than a dozen black-and-white-and-red illustrations to the site in the last two weeks. There also are works from British filmmakers and Swedish graphic designers.
"I've been reaching out to a lot of arts communities," Connis explains. "I've not been limiting myself to the U.S. If there's an arts community that's fairly active and is about the same things we are, I'll send them a message."
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.