Rosa Bonheur – The Lion at Home

The Lion at home was a painting (http://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/rosa-bonheur/the-lion-at-home-1881.jpg) in the gallery that really captured my imagination and made me think about size, position and style of images on the web.

The image was centred as you walked into the room, the gold frame was magnificent and instantly drew attention to the grandeur. The second image is again just to show the scale of the image I thought about how the scale of it helped it become the centre of attention within the room, and I set out to look for examples that were like this on the web.

Beats (http://uk.beatsbydre.com) was the first example I found on the web, their homepage featured a picture of the headphones they offer in a range of colour, take up about 50% of the webpage.

Another example I found was the website of the late Michael Jackson (http://www.michaeljackson.com/us/home) who’s image takes up the entirety of the screen while the text overlays the image. A common theme I have noticed across the sites I have viewed is that the images tend to be the main focus of the website while the text/content seems to to be additional information that compliments what is already there. There is a lot of negative space, and here is another great example of the negative space.(http://www.starbucks.co.uk);

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Francesca Woodman – Boxes

The write up of Francesca is nothing to do with her work, but rather the layout of her work at the gallery. The style was used to present five images with a diamond-grid formation in square frames.

I was somewhat fascinated by the layout, and got me thinking about how to arrange content online. I did a bit of browsing by simply typing “boxes” and “grid” into Google and trying to make something of my results. While not finding any content about boxes or grids particularly I soon realised that a lot of the web is contained within invisible grids or boxes and I will here document my findings.

An example of a grid with small margins was this one (http://grid.vsco.co/grid/1)

Like a gallery it has a set formation and sticks to it, I have drawn on the image blue lines to draw attention to the fact that the alignment isn’t edge to edge like many, or even simply bordered, but instead is staggered which seems to improve the flow of content.

I found websites that don’t have visible grids, seem to be arranged in a grid formation and found examples of this on many websites, I have again drawn on the images to further illustrate the point I am trying to prove.

On the Apple (www.apple.com) website you find content on a grey gradient, while there are no visible borders to the girds. As this was such a common theme across many websites I was looking at I decided to dig a bit deeper into the world of grid layouts online. I came across the 12 column grid (http://960.gs) which just so happens to be 960 pixels wide, the idea being that you can have many sized boxes within the grid, as long as it follows the specified sized, like this image represents (http://www.qualitypressthemes.com/wp-content/uploads/12-column.jpg);

There are many examples of work that use this grid formation as suggested on the website. These consist of big websites such as Sony Music, right down to more unknown companies like Black Estate Vineyard. Having experimented on multiple devices, I have also realised that these websites are almost instantly mobile optimised by simply using such a grid layout, with a fluid formation, allowing the content to arrange itself by understanding the size of the display.

Steve Kerry – Guardian

The Guardian

After viewing his work in the Pride of Place (POP) exhibition I was suddenly amazed by his ability to create unrealistic art. After some research (http://www.blog.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/Gryshnak) I discovered he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2009 and was unable to hold a steady paintbrush so was pushed into a digital art market, without much choice. Regardless to say his talent is extra-ordinary, being able to create futuristic scenes from his imagination. The image below is one that caught my eye during my trip around the POP exhibition.  The comparison between eggs and the creature to the woman set the scale of the scene to allow us to understand the image visually and physically.

The creature could be perceived as a more detailed version of this creature;

The image (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xavpJERQDcE/hqdefault.jpg) is of a creature from the creature creator game Spore (http://www.spore.com/ftl) which is a “multi-genre single-player Fantasy god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game). The woman in the image seems to be a female warrior as seen in the online role playing game from Blizzard Entertainment “World of Warcraft” represented by this image (http://www.gamingangels.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/world_of_warcraft_89.jpg)

The original image of Steve Kerry’s could be seen as a seriously more visually graphic image of a mixture of both. To create this, I looked into game posters for the fantasy genre, and I came across a Final Fantasy game cover (http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/final-fantasy-xiii_box-full.jpg)

 

I have tried to create my own game cover by copying similar themes from the poster I found and using certain elements to create a visual professional game cover. I studied the fonts used and added four small details along with cropping the image to make the art appear to be the cover of a game.

Craigie Horsfield – Susan Smith

Susan Smith

This a great image, it focuses on textures, detail and cropping which all compliment the image in a way that allows you to connect with Susan on a personal level. The simple black and white tones bring out the light and solemn expression in her face.

This would indicate sadness in her life, perhaps she is deep in thought. I believe this art piece can be related to portions of Enigma’s “Age Of Loneliness” music video;

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APW_QwzGg2o)

A similar concept of a the side of the of the face, with grave looks upon their faces throughout the video, the lyrics;

“Carly don’t be sad,

Life is crazy,

Life is mad,

Don’t be afraid,

Carly Don’t be sad,

That’s your destiny,

The only chance,

Take it, take it in your hands”

Can be taken in a way they are reflecting upon life, In a sense that we all have our own path to follow. If to manipulate the image in such a way to take full advantage of what I have just discussed, you could quite easily use the image to promote the fact you don’t need to be lonely in later life. This is an issue that effects over 51% of all people over 75 in England (http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/women60-plus/pages/loneliness-in-older-people.aspx). I have created a mockup of how this image can be used by the NHS to help loneliness in the older generation.

Susan Smith Edit

I visually used current NHS adverts (http://wearestamp.co.uk/portals/0/Images/NHS%20Northants%201/adverts_2.png)to make sure my mockup was in the line of current style of their marketing. Taking cues from the layout of the text, the style they write in and the general theme.

Stop Smoking

Notice the box at the bottom containing text just like the NHS advert along with the caption “What have you got to lose?”. Where the content of the images in the current NHS adverts show happy families enjoying the benefits of ‘not smoking’, my advert would relate to the viewer should they be lonely, enticing them to want to do something about being lonely. I also made the decision to keep the bottom box black rather than blue as the original image was in black & white and the new adverts seem to be more cheerful were as I was trying to aim to emphasise the loneliness of the woman.

Trip to Ferens Art Gallery

As a group we took a trip around Ferens Art Gallery to study the artwork, and gather information that we could use to help us understand the creativity that took place when firstly creating the art, and secondly arranging the artwork around the gallery.

The questions I asked myself about the images as I walked round the gallery were;

– What is the image content about, and what emotions does it provoke in the user?

– How does the visual layout of the artwork attract attention, and further interest in the artwork?

– How does the general layout of the art gallery and the presentation of work effect the viewer?

– How can the certain images manipulated for the web to its best ability?

– What do I personally like/dislike about the work, layout and general presentation?

I studied multiple images, and here are the notes that I have for each image.

Featured Image;

(http://www.heritage-learning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/st_ferens_slide.jpg)