As I am still building my own website, I wanted to take a look at another photographers page to gather inspiration, ideas and reflect on my own design layout and how to improve it. I have taken a look at the website of photographer Jonathan Lovekin, I have chosen to look at his website as I researched some of his work previously for my Folklore project, I have produced work similar such as the ingredients work for the bread baking shoot and the landscape photography that he has done.
Beginning with the home page, it is very simple, completely different from the Irving Penn website that I reviewed previously. As Penn's home page was filled with text and little imagery, I personally thought it was quite a mess and a lot of information to take in at first glance, I found Lovekin's website a lot more simple, less patronising and a good first impression for his audience. the home page consisted of a single black and white photograph of a cliff side on the right and a menu of some of his work and his name on the left. this brings me to the menu, it was incredibly easy to navigate and find the information that I was looking for. There was an option to open the gallery of work for a project or there was a tab for a page with all of the text about his imagery. For example, there was a gallery for his project 'Taste of Cherry' and a tab for the text that he chose to go along side it, both on the menu. I thought that this was very useful as the text was there if the viewer desired it but its an option to view the gallery without it so that it doesn't distract people from the body of work itself.
My only criticism for this website is the opposite of what I thought about Irving Penn's, this being the amount of text and information there is to find on there. Though Penn had displayed a lot of information to go alongside his work, I believe there wasn't enough with Lovekin's; yes, he did have some text but not a lot, and what was there didn't describe the project great, it may have been quotes or a poem, not a full summary of what the project is about, this kept me wondering what his work was truly about, what was its purpose? I believe there is a line between how much text should be on a website, there can't be too much or too little, too much is patronising and too little seems lazy and unuseful.
Concluding the review on the website of Jonathan Lovekin, I liked the simplistic approach, it wasn't too much to take in at once, the home page opened to a photograph which told me what his work was like, it was a good taste or first impression of what is to come on the website. however, there wasn't enough information to support his work, I didn't fully understand the bodies of work that were presented as there was too little information there to help guide me. all of this criticism has helped me understand designing a website even more, I now know that too little text is not useful to the audience and that a simplistic approach to designing a website is a good idea as it keeps it fresh, interesting and unpatronising.
Screenshot from Lovekin's Website
Here is a link to Jonathan Lovekin's website: https://www.jonathanlovekin.com