Foraging Through Flickr The Fast Way

I'd say that when most people think of Flickr, they think of a fun, simple way to share photos. But when I think of Flickr, I think of painfully long loading times and confusing navigation controls just to see a picture of your janky-ass, hairless cat in a knitted baseball tee getting ready to drink out of the toilet.

Well, the folks over at Airtight Interactive have come up with a way to speed up this painful process by creating the Flickr Related Tag Browser. The name really rolls off the tongue, right? Thankfully it's a lot prettier to use, than it is to say. The FRTB is a simple Flash program that searches through Flickr tags, or keywords, and finds anything you could possibly be looking for.

Let's say you type in LAist for example. Up pops a simple 6 X 6 grid of all of the photos that are tagged with the word 'LAist'. Simply click on one of the images and out pops a small preview of that image with the description that was written about it. If it turns out you really like one of the images you've come across, there's a link below the photo that takes you directly to the Flickr page where it was found. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
Another cool feature they've included are relating keywords that show up in a circle around the grid of images. So when you searched up LAist, related topics such as food, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, and Sunset pop up as well. The more general your word is, the more related topics that become available.

The details of the program are great as well, with tiny touches that actually give it character. You might notice that your search box is slightly tilted? And that when the grid of images pop up, they aren't quite centered either. My other favorite part is the choice of font, which was designed by miniml. It's nice to see that they went with an un-obvious choice, instead of going with something mundane like Arial.

So the next time you go searching for a bunch of skinny assholes dressed up like Santa Claus, or a giant eel sculpture, or the next thing you want to try and with your facial hair, the FRTB is the way to go.