COLLABORATION: WEBSITE DESIGN AND FUTURE EXHIBITIONS

After the exhibition had finished I had a talk with the team and we all decided that this wasn’t the end for ‘Do you see the heart shaped rock’. Upon my suggestion we decided a website would be the next step. We wanted to create an experience reimagining that of the pilgrimage to the exhitbion. This website allows the pieces to live on and be in another context. The website will comprise of images taken by the paid photographers from the exhibition and aspects of the sound that was present in the space.

This is a sketch of my idea for the website, based on what me and my other collaborators discussed.

We will be working with a website designer Fanette, who designed the first website that I have also documented in a previous blog post. Unfortunately she has been unavailable for the past few months so we have had to put the idea on hold. This means that we have more time to design the website to how we want it to be. After initial discussions we decided that we wanted the website to have the same explorative fluidity that the exhibition held. With reoccurring sounds that were heard in the space but changed to create something new. My role in this project is to help come up with ideas in the curation of the website layout and to also create sound to accompany the images.

This is my first time designing a website, a field that I am unfamiliar with. I have also never made a sound design in this sense that changes so much throughout. I will have to trial an error a lot of the sound, and I feel as if this website will take a long time to complete. We do hope though that it will be done by the start of July, we are just waiting on our website designer Fanette to Finnish one of her current projects. We also really want to use her as our designer as a few people on the team have used her before and really love the work that she makes. She really understands your vision and is a great person to collaborate with. As she is a friend we are also getting cheaper rates which financially fits in with how much money we made from the exhibition, we also agreed that we would prefer to pay her, a freelancer than get a bigger company to do it.

Here is a description of the layout for the website that I designed :

This is the first page of the website design that I have sketched out. It shows the title ‘do you see the heart shaped rock’ slowly fading in and once it is fully faded a heart slowly emerges from the the centre of the page pumping like a cartoon dose in the colour scheme of the past exhibition posters and information pages that we provided o the entrance of the exhibition. These colours would be black grey and white. Alongside the pumping heart, I want to make a sound design of the sound of a pumping heart beat backed with a low synth slowly getting louder as the heart the get bigger. Once the heart has reached a normal size the and pumped a few times below it will fade in ‘click on the heart to reveal all. When you click on the heart it smashes it and takes you to a new page.

This is my idea fro the main website page. There will be a main image covering the whole of the screen. Possibly an image that we used for one of the posters or a new one created by a member of the team. It will show the fragments of the rock that you smashed on the initial page. These rocks signify all of the different artist work. The page will have a title in the middle of it saying’ find the heart shaped rocks’. The sound design will continue from the synth heard on the initial page alongside some element of the Soun design that I made for the show. The other collaborators suggested that this would be a good idea as the sound design I made for the show is similar to what we want for the website. As you hover your mouse over the rocks the synth becomes louder. I will have to coordinate with our website designer on how to do this and research it if she docent know. Another idea we had was to make the main page similar to the floor plan of the actual exhibition from a birds eye view. This would allow the visitor to feel as if they too are in some ways experiencing the show in their reality.

As your mouse has hovered over the fragmented rock for a few seconds it zooms you into it, elevated by the synth now pulsing it takes you zoomed all the way into the rock to another page. All of the other rocks will still be covered.

You have now been taken to the artist page. The sound design will be specially designed to each artists based off of the nature of their work. To the left hand side there will be a heading ‘about the artist’, with a short artists bibliography and pricing of the work if it is still available to buy(if not a an unavailable sign next to it) and at the bottom contact information, to allow further opportunities or inquiries into their work. Then to the right of the page images will slowly start to appear one by one with a title of the piece at the top. As you scroll down the page it will show the professional images taken before and on the night, with description by the side of the photographs giving a short description of their work.

As the sound will be dictated by the format and layout of the website we have come to a pause with it until the website designer is available. We also need to know if these ideas can become reality and achievable before we start getting people to put time into what they would create for it. The sound as me and the group have discussed will follow the same pattern as the sound I used in the show. This will be mixed with other synths and generate a different sound to the one before.

I have showed this design to the rest of the group and they have agree that this is the style that we wanted, the only suggestions was to have an index which would give you the option to take you to different pages, just to make it more accessible and simpler. This index would include subtitles of : about us, about the exhibition, images from the exhibition on the night, contact details. I am exited to see what this website will ultimately look like and am keen to challenge myself by trying a new discipline and continue in collaboration with others. We hope that the exhibition will continue in the future. We all have the passion and drive for a next one and have gained so much knowledge by setting this exhibition up which will most definitely help with future ones. This website allows for not the exhibition to live on in some form, just until we find a space and the time for the next.

After the exhibition we also decided that we wanted to put a promotional video on our website and social media. One of my collaborators Lily has a background in film making and frequently produces and makes music videos etc. She created the short clip which is comprised of the photographs taken by the paid photographers from the show. We also wanted to have some kind of sound to go along with it. This was my role within this video. I created a track that I thought encapsulated how the night of the show felt. There was a lot of back and forth with the sound as I gave everyone 3 options to choose from, we all decided collectively on one and so I then perfected it and the video will be shared shortly on social media and then again on the website when we have it up and running.