Professional Practice 2 – Blog Review

This weeks blog will look at the website of Gerhard Richter. Richter is one of the main artists who I have been looking at for my degree and so I though it would be fitting to look at his website to get an idea of how he publicises himself.

Above is an image of the main home screen of Richter’s website. When viewed on a laptop or desktop, the website can look a bit ‘clunky’ and not overly attractive. It’s design is very simple and there is a noticeable lack of colour on the website. Then again, Richter’s work in general sticks to the same colour palette so in a way it compliments it quite nicely.

All of Richter’s artworks are split into categories mainly on theme or subject matter (e.g. ‘Death’ or ‘Families’). This does make it easier to find artworks instead of having to scroll through pages and pages of artworks to find the one you want. However this does mean that you have to know which category the painting will fall under – which, if you’re new to Richter’s work, might become slightly daunting and confusing.

However, the website does have a search feature which makes things a lot easier so long as you know the title of the piece you’re looking for!

Once you’ve found the work you’re looking for, the information on the page is relatively good. It has the title and date and media used which is incredibly useful for referencing! It would perhaps be nice to have a bit more text to give information and context for the artworks, but, nonetheless, the image quality is very good and clear and you can see the work very easily with minimal distractions.

Viewed on a phone, the website is a bit more attractive. There’s a lot less ‘blank space’ and the font is nicer (in my opinion!), but the only downside is that the home screen (the first image in this blog) looks quite clumped together and you end up having to scroll for ages to get down to the category you’re looking for.

Overall it’s quite a good website and easy to navigate. I haven’t looked too closely into any of his social media as of yet as I just wanted to focus on the website, but I may look at social media in a future blog.

For my first post I will be looking at the website of artist Graham Crowley. We had an Artists Talk with him this week in which we saw his work first hand, and so it was good to also look at his online presence as well.

(Above) The opening page to Crowley’s website. Very intuitive to use, nice design to it.

(Above) The page on Crowley’s website dedicated to his paintings. Again, very easy to navigate and not confusing. Very little text which means a) the artwork speaks for itself, and b) the viewer doesn’t get exhausted by having to read pages and pages of text.

However, on the flip side of this, it may have been nice to have a bit more text to allow us to understand a bit more about his work and his practice in general.

(Above) A page dedicated to books of Crowley’s. This does slightly make up for the lack of text on his paintings page, as he directs you to the place where you can read his thoughts on his work and art/society.

(Above) Graham Crowley’s Chronology. Very useful in helping the viewer to understand Crowley’s background as an artist.