Y U G O     N A K A M U R A

JUN TAKAGI MORE PEOPLE TO WATCH

Web pages want to be grids. They can't help it: the Web is based on a programming language called HTML, and HTML is designed to lock words and pictures into boring little rectangular boxes.

But what if you could smash that grid? What would the Web look like then? Yugo Nakamura knows. Nakamura, 32, is a Tokyo Web designer, and the hammer he's using to smash the Web is a program called Flash: a simple, free browser plug-in that adds sound and movement to websites. "Since Flash appeared on the scene," says Nakamura, "the rules as to what a Web page should be no longer apply."

To see what Nakamura thinks a Web page should be, surf to his online gallery at www.yugop.com. (Warning: don't do this on a day when you have to get anything else done. It's addictive.) The Web was designed by scientists as a way to share data, but Nakamura uses it to share something more profound: a sense of playfulness.

Words and images float freely across the screen or follow the cursor like schools of curious minnows. Images bulge and distort or blow away as if in a high wind. A clock ticks off seconds with a hand frantically stacking and unstacking toy wooden blocks. Words shatter into their component letters at the click of a mouse or spontaneously organize themselves into flow charts on the fly. Nakamura's websites turn information into interactive art—and the great thing about them is you're never quite sure who the artist is: him or you.

—By Lev Grossman. Reported by Michiko Toyama/Tokyo