www.jamesrizzi.com
For our research, the first one I chose was a personal website for the artist James Rizzi. I have always admired his work…starting when he was selling his pieces on the streets of New York (he always sat up shop right around the corner from my aunt’s loft in Soho) He then went on to make a pretty good living for himself and family working as a fine artist. He now has his own gallery, and doing quite a bit of high dollar international, commercial work.
Anyways, about his site, his work is 3-D and the photos are poor quality and by no means does his work justice…big whoops in my book. He displays most of his artwork as a long scroll where you can click on a specific piece to enlarge. We talked about displaying art this way last week in class…at first I didn’t think it would work too well, but it really makes for quick and easy viewing…and really allows the viewer to enlarge and view only what they want.
The animation on the splash page really doesn’t add anything to the site, and I thought it was a little distracting. However, I did like the animation of his character that were part of his navigation on the left side of the screen. I thought the animation was appropriate here because it really helps capture the playfulness, personality and originality of his work.
Melissa, you have collected some interesting sites and the stories behind them seem special to you. You even found some that you probably should offer to redesign for them! I sense that you are gathering some valuable information for your own site and I look forward to seeing your its evolution!