Check out my latest design project for Alpha Lab. I can’t take all the credit for this one since the graphics were done by a third party. I simply designed the layout and wrote the code.
Brought to you by a bunch of ambitious New Yorkers and the Thompson Hotel, Alpha Lab will launch their first event on Saturday, July 16. It’s currently invite only, but will eventually open to the public every Saturday so stay tuned for that.
This has been in works for a while, but I finally completed the finishing touches on my friend’s clothing site. You can check it out at http://privacyinpublic.com. We were shooting for a clean, elegant and minimalistic design. It was done entirely in CSS, including the hovering effects that you can see in the navigation bar and the front panel images. The one exception is the online store which incorporates a tiny bit of Javascript.
The photographs and collection items were shot by Jared Fuller.
I was planning to push out a new site design as soon as January came around, but that never happened… mostly due to my own laziness. But hey, it’s only February so I’m not that late.
As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of minimalistic designs. Over the three years that my site has been online, it’s gone through three major revisions (including this one); all of which have been black and white text based layouts.
Below are some screen captures of the new design as well as pictures of the old design for comparison.
2009-2010 Design
If I had to sum up my preference in art and design in three words, I would say “intricate”, “minimalistic”, and “dark”. Keep in mind, this whole blog post doesn’t apply to photography only, but is my general outlook on all types of art that catches my attention, whether it be painting, drawing, fashion, or even web design.
Dark colors catch my attention, dark themes keep my interest. Ever hear of Tim Burton? He’s easily one of my favorite artists. For those of you keeping up to date with my fashion portfolio, you may have notice that I have tendency to envelop my models in shadows. I’ll sometimes have two, maybe three lights hitting a subject and yet I still manage to underexpose my image. It’s because I’m attracted to the dark lighting. In fact, I’ve actually been yelled at by a couple of clients for purposely underexposing their pictures. Sure it’s a bit unconventional, but fuck the conventional anyway. This doesn’t just apply to photography either. My entire website is composed of different shades of black and gray. My online portfolio is a giant black screen with white text. My general choice of everyday apparel is some shade of black or gray. I’m a walking example of dullness.
Minimalistic. This one’s important, and I’ll cite Apple as a prime example of practicing minimalistic design. I hate when things are taken overboard. When I designed my website, I created it with two things in mind; I wanted it to be direct in its goal, and I wanted it to be functional. Nothing more, nothing less. My goal was to introduce people to my work. My portfolio is nothing but a simple black background and unobtrusive text links on the side. There isn’t anything on my portfolio to distract my viewers from the primary purpose of the site, which is to view my photos. All of my links and information are available with the press of a button. Accessing my website is an immediate and hassle free experience for my viewers. Flashy graphics and codes distract content, and my site is all content.
Intricate. This is a tough one. How does a piece of art or design categorize itself as minimalistic while still being intricate? For this to work out, we need to understand exactly what minimalism is. In order to understand this, lets rewind back to what I said about designing my site with the purpose of obtaining a “goal” and “functionality”. I believe those are the two most vital words to understanding minimalistic design. Does the design of a piece of art accomplish it’s goal and functionality or in other words, “purpose” without needlessly threading into other areas or incorporating distracting elements? If it accomplishes that, then I think we can all agree that the art is minimalistic in nature. Minimalism does not necessarily mean a work of art is barebones or boring. It simply means it is accomplishing its purpose without including needless elements.
Let’s take a look at typography, which is turning text into art. This is one of my favorite forms of art simply because I find the design of text to be beautiful. Times New Roman, Baskerville Old Face, Verdana, and Arial are among my favorite fonts. Text is intricate. Text is bold. Text is dark. Text is minimalistic. I love text so much that my entire portfolio design is based off of text. My friend Sage’s bedroom is designed around a giant text pattern. All of my tattoos are text (although this will change soon). A design I created for an old and unfortunately failed project with my friends called Ethos was composed entirely of text.
