That, of course, is animating.
I won't be putting too much effort into that yet. I'll start in about 2 weeks when the Dissertation is handed in (scary). Until then, I have found websites with a look/features that look good and inspire me.
What I like about this website (and the LittleBig Planet games) is the simple, graphic nature of the buttons in contrast to the busy, detailed background. The block colours make the site (and game) easy to navigate.
What I don't like, however, is how busy the website page is, and I'm not a fan of lots of bright colours. It is also in a blog-style layout, and would be no good for an online gallery.
Alex Reis is a digital painter of aliens and animals, and is a big source of inspiration. His website is a dedicated gallery of his art. The gallery itself has preview thumbnails along the left edge, and the background is flat black, which I guess is to avoid distractions from the paintings.
I like the opening splash image which acts as a link to the main gallery, although I was disappointed to find out that the image doesn't randomise.
Other, non-internet, inspirations will include:
Deus Ex
What I like about Deus Ex's visual style is the simplicity of the interfaces. One can blur their vision to an incredible degree and still be able to navigate the interface. It feels as if this method of presentation is making a comeback now that the world is sick of overly shiny and busy buttons and menus from the late 90's. It also fits the graphic look I want for my website and includes the simple interface over a blurred, busy background. There is also the simple colour scheme. It gives the game an identity. I was thinking of blue for my website. Because I really like blue and black. It's kinda my thing.
While I won't be going for the shattered triangles, I do like the falling particles in the Deus Ex menu backgrounds. Seeing as HTML 5 is coming into popularity I figure I could try it out. Maybe falling squares or diamonds or something? I'd really like to have some extra level of interactivity on my website, and these things can't be too difficult to code, right?
One of my favourite internet toys is the Bio-Bak, an enormous web page with a fun little game built in. I discovered it years ago. It has lots of cool coded particles and sliding effects and whatnot.
I wouldn't make anything as extravagant as the Bio-Bak, but cool little toys like this must be pretty simple to create, but are surprisingly satisfying.
I wouldn't focus the website on these toys, and I don't want them to distract people from the actual content of the site, but I feel like a little bit of interactivity and 'wow' visual tricks could attract people to it.
Now that I've finally purchased a web domain, the pressure is on to design this thing and get it up and running.
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