4 posts from April 2008

So this is a preliminary sketch of what I would like my homepage to look like. To enter, one would have to press the Enter key at the bottom-left of the image - all other portals will be orange and at the bottom of the rectangle. The heading, Res Publica, will be at the top of every page. It's a very simple site, and I hope to use the moon image on every link, either as a lightened background or a small motif. The reason why the site is called Res Publica is because the nature of the internet is within the public domain, which the term signifies. I believe the moon image is also symbolic of such a 'space.'

http://www.slowlydownward.com/ILTMW.html

http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/

These sites are incredibly user friendly and it is their simplicity that draws my regular visits to them. Slowly downward is the site of one Stanley Donwood, who is better known for his album art for Radiohead; he is also a published writer and acclaimed painter. The link I posted is for his latest gallery show which is but part of a larger site - and I hope to build my personal website in a similar style to his, mainly because I find the typography and colors to be the focus, something I'm consistently interpreting; color theory and word design impact the way information is understood and furthermore appropriated. Ghostbox.co.uk is even more accessible - although it has flaws. The information might be presented in a straightforward form of a box (which alludes to ghost'box'), the font is a veritable text of tiny signals; while it may look like old-school computer technology - bearing its own artistic merit of sorts - it still hurts the eyes a little bit, especially if you're looking to buy the products and deciding which record to get takes some good quality time in front of the computer screen.

I suspect that even though I enjoy the interactivity of flash-heavy sites, I will have a better time creating a personal website that suits my goals: a highly functional outlet on the interweb. Obviously I won't use the exact templates of these two sites, rather I would like to consolidate their design, presenting what I choose to upload in a clear and expressive manner.  I will borrow from Slowly Downward's rectangular presentation, while looking to Ghostbox's clean approach to line up my links, which will, most likely, have my resume, my weekly observations and a link to my thesis project and its process. In terms of artwork, everything will be conceived of found footage photography that I have worked on throughout the semester. This will serve as a decorative measure.