Website research.

     Next semester I will be crafting my very own proper website, so before then I thought I'd best look at some existing ones and decide what I like about them.

     I began my research by looking in the favourites folder of my browser (for obvious reasons), however, it turned out that almost all of them were simple social network pages; which I think says something about modern society, but isn't much use to me at the minute.

     In the end I turned to the all-powerful and omnipresent overlord "Google" to aid me in my quest for website-based knowledge, and I found some quite interesting examples:

•      Duncan X's website, duncanx.com, was the first to draw me in. The homepage features a simple, black on white, hand rendered image which gives off an all-round air of simplistic luxury, much like the packaging of fancy, overpriced goods. However, the navigation of the site lets it down. Links are often hard to decipher and occasionally open up new tabs for no real reason.     Aesthetically though, this site is mostly rather pleasing to the old eyeballs due to it's simplicity, which is something I will keep in mind.
•     Shortly after I was told to check out mrgordo.com. Again it features a simplistic layout but is much easier to navigate as there is a clearly labelled sidebar that takes you where you want to go. Similarly, valtastic.com and thequietrevolution.co.uk employ the use of sidebars as a means of navigation and I think in terms of a website intended to display artwork this works very well, as images are allowed to take centre stage while the boring bits are neatly tucked away but not out of sight.

     I plan to continue picking apart websites as I peruse the internet, but so far the conclusion I've come to is this: keep it simple, keep it pretty.