COSC2291 – Web Page Construction

A1: Microsite

1. Due date:

Week 6, MONDAY, 4PM

Late submissions will have 10% per day deducted from the assignment grade.

Assignments submitted later than three days will not be graded.

2. Creative brief:

You will be assigned a research about a contemporary artist and his work. Create a minimum 4-pages

website about the topic. The overall objective of this website is to introduce the audience to the

chosen contemporary artist. Refer to the next section for the list of artists.

Therefore, although small in dimensions and content, it should be a visually engaging website, with

concise and detailed text information, while being very clear and easy to navigate. Since most of

information will be of textual nature, you will play with typographic settings in CSS to create rhythm,

visual interest and improve legibility.

Apply basic design elements such as lines, points and textures, and experiment with negative space

and contrast to create visual hierarchy and visual cues.

For the purpose of this introductory assignment, it is recommended that you use a fixed-width layout

with maximum width: 960px.

3. List of Artists:

Here is a list of contemporary artists that you can choose from; you are also required to fill in the excel

file given by the lecturer when the assignment is released your chosen artist.

*** IMPORTANT: No more than two students in both groups are allowed to choose the same artist. In

addition, the content of the students’ submissions must be entirely different. Otherwise, it would be

considered as plagiarism. Make sure to choose your artist as soon as possible – first come first serve.

1. Ai Weiwei

2. Allan McCollum

3. Andy Warhol

4. Antony Gormley

5. Banksy

6. Barbara Kruger

7. Bruce Nauman

8. Cai Guo-Qiang

9. Candy Chang

10. Chie Fueki

11. Chuck Close

12. Cindy Sherman

13. Damien Hirst

14. David Fobes

15. David Hockney

16. Elizabeth Peyton

17. Eric Drooker

18. Félix González-

Torres

19. Francis Alÿs

20. Gilbert & George

21. Gillian Carnegie

22. Henry Chopin

23. Ian Hamilton Finlay

24. Jackson Pollock

25. Jean-Michel

Basquiat

26. Jeff Koons

27. Jeff Wall

28. Jenny Saville

29. Jörg Immendorff

30. Jules de Balincourt

31. Kara Walker

32. Karl Holmqvist

33. Mariko Mori

34. Maurizio Cattelan

35. Maya Lin

36. Michael Carson

37. Nora Schultz

38. Philip Guston

39. Richard Estes

40. Robert Longo

41. Rudolf Stingel

42. Shephard Fairey

43. Sol Levitt

44. Takashi Murakami

45. Tim Eitel

46. Vicki Walsh

47. Wade guyton

48. Yayoi Kusama

49. Yoshimoto Nara

50. Yue Minjun

4. Content Requirements:

You are required to conduct research about the artist by yourself. Your research should focus on the

author’s biography, analysis of artist’s work, artist’s style & theme / topic of interest. You are expected

to gather information from various sources.

Your website should include 4 – 5 pages:

01. Homepage: Make good use of imagery to engage with the audience. Don’t have just an

“ENTER” button - don’t make it an extra click for the user. Include some interesting contents

(an interesting quote, introduction about the project) or provide snippets of the main pages to

encourage the users to explore more.

02. You can choose to make it a landing page with just graphics and an “ENTER” button – or –

you can include interesting contents (1 interesting quote, introduction about the project). The

design of this page can be entirely different from the rest of the site.

03. Biography: Brief biography of the artist (150 – 500 words total)

04. Work (Projects, Artwork, etc.): Analysis of 1 – 3 pieces of artist’s work (300 – 500 words total)

05. One or two pages about a certain topic that you find relevant to the artist (artist’s theme,

quotes, trivia, etc.)

06. References: List of references that were used for the content.

Relevant images should be included as long as the reference is clearly given below the image or in the

list of reference.

5. Design Requirements:

The design of the website (color palette, typography treatment, graphics, etc.) must be relevant to the

artist’s body of work. Imagine how the artist would design this website by him/herself.

At this point of the class, it is not required to create a multiple-columns layout.

Pay extra attention to typography treatment and font choice.

The homepage should be visually attractive. In this page, you should try to embody the universe of the

artist. Design a masthead banner with the website’s title. Remember the purpose of this page is

encouraging your audience to click further and explore the site.

Every other page should have more or less the same structure to provide unity. You will include the

banner and a navigation menu (we should be able to go to every page from every page)

Use correct HTML, CSS with semantic markup. Validate your HTML & CSS code with W3C validators.

6. Process Document

Think of this not as an “assignment requirement” but as a record of your design process. Document

every step of your process and submit a PDF file. This project is simple so a 3-page document is

acceptable. Here is a suggested format for the process document of this project:

- Introduction (project’s statement of purpose, short paragraph about the author)

- Brainstorm map, Diagrams, etc.

- Wireframe Sketches & Design Sketches (banner, button, etc.)

- Typography & Color Exploration (include some typography / color options that you’ve tested,

and reason why you chose the final solution)

Brainstorm map, sitemap, sketches can and should be done on paper. Scan the papers and include

scanned file in the PDF submission.

7. Deliverables

- Include everything in a zipped folder (A1_GX_#Snumber_StudentName)

- Homepage must be named index.html

- 1 unique CSS file for all pages (ie: each page should link to this file)

- Images should be put into a separate folder

- PDF file of Process document

8. Assessment Criteria

Micro site: Information Architecture, layout, HTML + CSS coding

Thoroughness, clarity, and level of analysis, grammar and spelling

Note: Plagiarism is an important issue. Copying text or portions of texts without proper citation, using

images without credits is considered plagiarism and can lead to reduction of marks, or an automatic

fail of the assignment.