A few months ago we launched a New York sister site to Tokyo Art Beat, with all the same great features Tokyo’s users have enjoyed. Even from thousands of miles away from actually being able to attend the events on NYAB, I find myself checking back almost every day to see the Pick of the Day. It’s hard to compliment NY without implicitly dissing Tokyo, but let’s just say that those tiny 169px images alone are doing a lot to back up NY’s reputation as one of the great art centers of the world.

For now, the NYAB site is basically a clone of TAB in purple, but already we’re starting to see a development wishlist accumulate that will inevitably pull NYAB in its own direction, making it a better, more native site for New York, and hopefully improving TAB as well.

In the course of consulting work, I’ve seen local web teams improvise design tweaks and add ons to meet the needs of their users, slowly tugging at brand coherency, until one day the global office wakes up, and squashes often useful sites and features in the name of uniformity. This always seemed silly and heavy-handed, but as an outsider I had no emotional attachment to the established visuals and voice that were being defended. Eventually NYAB may grow to the point where some design and development happens independent of Tokyo, and I hope that when that time comes I have the judgement and humility to known when to hold on, when to let go, and when to encourage.