Good use of a minimalist theme to display the artwork. I think you've succeeded on all areas of your brief. There is nothing superfluous, nothing that doesn't have a reason to be there.
Easy to read, appropriate typography, well-proportioned page.
The Mondrian quote doesn't quite feel right. It's the tiniest of criticisms, but I suggest finding something slightly less "academic".
Well done.
I really like this! Too bad we can't use such minimalist designs more often... Here are a few minor points I would address...
I hope this helps! :)
Hi Cristian
Thank you! I will certainly take your comments on board . Re font i was trying to be as websafe as possible so i'm not using an image for the header (name of artist). The idea is to let the design degrade gracefully if styles are disabled. But i'll check the fonts you suggest out. I like the idea of the printed book. Will explore further. I would find it difficult to make the navigation less prominent as i also need to cater for target audiences that are moderatly web savy. Usability is a concern. Thanks again for your ideas!
Baba
Sorry, I meant to mention using font-face or Cufon for the custom fonts. These will also degrade gracefully, if needed.
love the minimalist look. great use of white space to really make the artwork speak for itself, which it does really well, if you like that sort of thing (which I do).
Love the quote next to the image, like the top navigation bar.
But the artist's name, location and the headline don't really work for me. All of a sudden we're not mimalist anymore, we're trying to be fancy with different font sizes and weights. I'd rather see the artist's name underneath the artwork work, in the same all caps you used for the nav bar. Not sure you need his location in Bali, and the words " a collection of" just
WAYAN PURNATA | abstact art
Same holds true for your secondary pages - like it all, except for the headline treatment.
Hi Richard
That's great feedback thanks! Will find it difficult to drop headline or to reduce it. The idea being that if someone was blindfolded, then catapulted into the world wide web and he/she would randomly arrive at my site he/she should be able to tell instantly what the site is about. The font is the same as nav but with more letter spacing. I will try to see if less spacing and all caps works. I like the idea of the name underneath the main image on the homepage but then i can't really do this for the other pages which would create an inconsistency.
Thanks again. I shall give your suggestions a try.
Baba
I'm not quite sure what this mockup is about? The logo text should be aligned better...even though one is left aligned and the other right aligned...the margin left and margin right should be the same.
Hi Bryant
thanks for your feedback. the purpose of the site is described in the concept description. You are right to question the alignment of the two title lines though. As such, i didn't really look at aligning them in a particular way. Just the way i like it. So i've given your comment a bit of thought but i find that the intuitive approach yielded an acceptable result in the sense that it works rather well with the style of the painiting where blocks of color are also not quie aligned. I don't think symetric alignment would work.
Thanks
Baba
Just because something is minimalistic doesn't mean it has to be just plain boring. As you will be aware the minimalist scene needs to be impressive to hold any hope of attraction so with that in mind a plain white background with rubbish everyday font and over the top plain navigation doesn't give this site much hope.
To be frank if you don't see artwork that you like on this website there isn't a single thing that would catch the eye and keep people pushing on to see more work and find something they like.
I worked on a minimalistic personal project for a website of mine and I will post a screen shot of it for you to look at. It is minimalistic in nature and is a bit fun but doesn't have many elements to crowd up the page.
Something needs to be added, make it grey and life-less but for the love of mankind do something with this.
Hi Steve
Thank you for your review!
Baba