grabowski.ru

Since the very first day this website began to grow and finally has become enormously huge, so one of the main tasks was to totally inspect the content — to leave something as is, to combine this and that, and to remove all the rest.

It was decided that website’s menu must consist of minimal number of items, and it must be situated at top of the page. We draw a very approximate sketch and also write a list of pages to understand what we can do with all this legacy:

Finally we decide that our website will consist of five sections, and each of them will have its “face” (like it was in previous version). Then we make a mockup of main page:

No, no and no. Faces are too different, backgrounds are too complex, and the menu looks very variegated and not friendly for eyes. We have to simplify these portraits and make them in one style, and also to use different colours for each item:

Just perfect.

The main content of this website is images, so now it’s time to think about “Paintings” section and imagine how it may look like inside. At first we decide to keep the same structure the section always had:

After deep thoughts and doubts we reject this idea we come to conclusion that we must collect all the images and sort them by years. At the same time it clarifies that “Go west!” section has to be removed from website, so the menu shortens to four items. We draw and think how to arrange thumbnails:

No, thumbnails are too small. Let’s try to make them larger:

And again — no. First, too empty. Second, each image had its date and caption, and it would be nice if we use them too. So we try to design a list the same way as it was in previous version but in two columns:

Now we have captions and dates but it looks more empty. Moreover it’s a repetition of the past, so we keep on thinking and make thumbnails large enough to place captions under them — to make a kind of gallery:

OK, it’s time to stop.

Sorting images we understand that images from “Postcards” section must be placed in their own section, so our menu has five items again. And after all we decide to use dark background:

Then we draw a mockup for a text-based section:

Little by little we reach the main page and select icons for “Share” block:

As a result we have a bright and modern website:

Previous (fourth) version:

Third version:

Second version:

First version: