Shawn Stucky

http://www.shawnstucky.com/

Shawn Stucky is a fine artist in the Chicago area. He also does work in photography and  screen printing. To check out his work you can click the link above which is his website.

His homepage features ten navigational elements including Home, Fine Art, Photography, News, Exhibition CV, Publications, Bio/Artist's Statement, Contact, Links, and Purchase. These elements are arranged on the left side in a single column. The arrangement of these elements fits seamlessly into the overall layout of his pages. The color of the text used for these navigational buttons is a dark gray, and it changes to a light blue when you place the mouse over it. This holds as a general rule for all links. The typeface for the navigational buttons is visually distinct from the other text as it is serif and all the other information on the homepage is in a sans serif typeface, still the font's arrangement and color flow well with all elements on the homepage. The upper left corner features the title of the website: Shawn Stucky, which is a script type font and dark blue in color. It is also the largest in size of all the text on the page. This creates a sense of hierarchy even though his name is in all lowercase letters. To the right of the navigational buttons in a black smaller font he introduces the site and has a review of himself by another person.

The homepage has a good overall sense of balance. He uses the negative/blank space to balance out the areas he has text/image. Speaking of image the only image on the homepage is the background itself which is an image of one of his pieces of artwork. This image remains consistent as the background throughout all of his pages, and he builds his layout around the background. His layout, which remains consistent from page to page, along with his font choice and with his color pallet of blue, gray, white, and black, creates a sense of a distinct visual relationship from page to page

All pages following the homepage pretty much mirror the homepage. In general, the pages are laid out in so that there are chunks of information. The title is the largest and boldest of the information and always in black. The subtitles are smaller but still black and still bold. The information following that is the the same size as that subtitles, but not bold, and the links are gray and when you click on them they turn light blue. He uses white dividing lines to group information together.

If we move on to the Fine Art page we see that the layout of the page remains the same as the homepage with his site title in the upper left corner, the navigational buttons under that, and to the right of the navigational buttons the main information of that page. This page features his works in the fine arts field. First, he introduces the page as he did before on the homepage. Then he goes on to briefly explain each collection and under the explanation is his actual work in that collection.

The works are small, but if you click on them they appear bigger on the page, and the background fades out so you can focus on the piece. Also, when it appears bigger, underneath the picture in gray lettering it features the piece's title along with dimensions and what image number it is out of how many images he has total on that page. Also, if you don't want to see the works bigger, when you run your mouse over the images they lighten and the title and dimensions appears if you pause your mouse on the image.

The Photography page is visually arranged the same as all the others. When you first go to the page, the photography information comes from the bottom of the page and moves straight up to the position of the information on former pages. The arrangement of this information is in a table sort of layout; the table is of the same color pallet as the rest of the site with shades of blue.

Each category of pictures has its own square or rectangle so to speak, and when you run your mouse over that square it turns a darker blue shade. At the bottom of the table there are two rectangle buttons; one to lead you to the previous screen of the table, and one to lead you to the next screen of the table. When you run your mouse over these blue/gray buttons they turn white. There is a small photo on the left side and then a title of the series of pictures and a description underneath about that series of pictures. When you click on the square the information runs down off the page and a picture comes up. There are a series of buttons under the picture (all of the same color pallet) which are much like when viewing a slide show; however, if you choose not to take over managing your viewing time, the pictures are on a timer and change.

The News page consists of news postings regarding things Shawn has done lately including recent things he designed or work of his that was recognized. He also discusses things regarding music such as albums that are coming out. There is hierarchy between the news posts and the date it was posted as the date is a smaller size and gray like the interspersed links. Each news post is separated by a white dividing line making it easy to tell one post from the next.

The Exhibition CV page features his different exhibitions. He divides the information up by date therefore the dates in each group are emphasized the most being bolder and larger than the other text. The date is then divided up into cities and then the galleries featuring his work. The dates go from soonest to latest.

The Publication page features various publications regarding Shawn. First, he starts out with the title of the first publication. Then under the title there is a link to the entire story, and following that the story begins. Then there is a white line and the whole layout starts over again with another publication.

The Bio/Artist Statement features exactly what it states: a bio on Shawn and his artist statement. The Contact page features Shawn's contact information along with the social networking sites he belongs to. The Links page is laid out slightly different than the other pages. Instead of being laid out vertically is laid out horizontally in groups. He has the general categories of the links (photographers, visual artists, etc.) going across and the links that belong in that category listed underneath.

And finally we move to the Purchase page. The Purchase page only features a note from Shawn saying you can purchase his work through Etsy as he hasn't really put together the purchase section yet. This is the only unfinished element on his site, but looking at the site through a design perspective it is easy to say it is finished in every other aspect. It is easy to see he spent a good amount time putting together a very well designed and well functioning website. So ,again, I encourage those of you who actually read through this whole post to go  to his site and check out his work if you still have the time because his work is incredibly interesting and unique, and his website is a great example of a website well done.