This is the website homepage for the Indie music artist Eliza Doolittle. This website visually contrasts extremely with Ed Sheeran’s website, as there are countless vibrant colours, images, shapes and even animations. The website is not laid out very clearly, yet navigation around the site is still quite easy (4) as the internal links to other pages are distinguished from the images and shapes by being in a bold black font with a white background and black border.
The title of the page is the name of the artist (5) (Eliza Doolittle) and therefore it is quite clear what website this is, despite the fact that the title is in the centre of the image collection, in the middle of the page. The function of this website is to inform you about the artist, with information such as future events, concerts, to promote/sell their music/merchandise, to enable the audience to view videos and pictures relating to the artist and to let the audience learn more about the artist, for example through their biography.
The title and only other pieces of text (the internal links (4)), are in a bold black font so the stand out against the bright colours and patterns of the background, and so they are easily legible to the audience.
(1) Is a box of external links to other websites where more information on the artist is available. For example there is a link to Eliza Doolittle’s facebook page, and a link to her YouTube channel where you can listen to and watch all her music videos. These links are all directly relevant to this website, which all external links ought to be.
At (2), is a box which contains Eliza Doolittle’s recent ‘Tweets’, and alternates between her most recent five. This is used so her fans can keep up to date with her latest news and information, as well as what she is up to, and what she’s thinking/feeling, if you don’t have Twitter.
You can buy Eliza Doolittle’s music directly, via an external link at the top right hand side of the page (3). There is an image within the box advertising the music, which is of the album cover, so the audience can see clearly what it is that they are buying.
The navigation (4) which I mentioned earlier, is not very clearly laid out, as it is at angles, almost ‘stuck’ into the images in the middle of the page, but is clearly marked by the contrasting colours. These links to other pages are animated so they enlarge when the cursor hovers over them. The whole image collection ‘follows’ the cursor as it moves about the page, which can be distracting, but is effective at catching your attention. The actual images (6) are very different and vibrant, with pictures including lips, playing cards, a rocket, suns and gumball machines. The whole air of the collection is that of the 40’s, where Eliza Doolittle gets some inspiration for her songs. Every colour contrasts the next, with many being sunny and bright, and so everything has a happy, uplifting look, similar to many of Eliza’s songs (related to the analysis of her song Pack Up).
The background (7) of the page is a mustard yellow colour, but at the bottom of the page there are four ‘scrabble’ letters (8) - Y, B, P and R, which you can click on which changes the colour of the background to the corresponding scrabble tile; Y is for yellow, B is a dark blue, P is a candy pink and R is a deep red. This makes the website more interactive, personal and fun for the audience, and encourages you to spend more time on the website.
There is very little ‘white space’ on this homepage- something which improves legibility and increases clarity for the audience. As a consequence of this, there is a lot going on on this homepage, and the eye has a tendency to wander all over the age before what you are looking for becomes apparent. The wording is fairly easy to see, but navigation is slow as your eye is drawn to so many things.
The format of the website is random; nothing stays in one place because the navigation system wanders where the cursor goes. Almost everything is collected into the middle of the screen in one big image.
The website takes slightly longer than Ed Sheeran’s did to load; only fractions of a second, but this is because of the high amount of images, colours and animations used on the page. The images are clear, though on some slower or older computers, the animation that causes the navigation to follow the cursor is jerky and slow.
This website is a complete opposite of Ed Sheeran’s; whereas that was a little plain, this is a tad too much. There are adequate links to other internal and external pages, and the whole thing is very eye-catching and bright. This website is more in the genre of ‘pop’ than ‘indie’, because of the bright colours. Ed Sheeran’s website is much more Indie, as it is plainer and more concise. It isn’t over the top like Eliza Doolittle’s can be, and relates to the Indie theme much more because of this.
Link to Website:
http://www.elizadoolittle.com/
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