Combining Three Art Sites into One

In May 2018, I consolidated the content from three related art websites into a single site. Urban Art On The Map, Critters On The Map and Murals On The Map became Aberdeen Art, currently called Aberdeen Art and Music.

The old content was copied, pasted, edited as needed and reorganized. A plain black background was chosen to put the spotlight on the art, not the website design.

Aberdeen Art And Music, Home Page

Urban Art On The Map, Home Page

Sculpture page (all the content from Urban Art On The Map)

As You Were, Urban Art On The Map

As You Were, Aberdeen Art And Music

Mobile

The old sites were practically unusable on mobile. Below are three cropped screenshots of the same entry to give you an idea of how much better the mobile experience is on the new site. I also have a separate page with a number of uncropped mobile screenshots from all the sites.

Old Site

New Site

Critters On The Map, Home Page

Critters section on Aberdeen Art and Music

Critters On The Map, Critter

Same critter on Aberdeen Art And Music

Murals on the Map, Home Page.

Murals section on Aberdeen Art And Music

Weyerhaueser Mill

Aberdeen, Washington 1889

Footnote

The website Aberdeen Art and Music that I created for a local organization no longer exists. This post is being left here as an example of my work.

Pivoting a Website

The website Aberdeen Art and Music began as an effort to consolidate three older websites into a single website for purposes of trying to create a local walking tour as a tourist asset for this small town. It later took on a new purpose and I was tasked with updating the site to preserve and enhance the existing purpose while making room for new functions. The older websites were static sites that each corresponded to a printed brochure. The brochures and corresponding original websites were logically categorized by type of art: Murals, Critters and Urban Art (mostly sculpture). But much of this art can be found in close proximity in the downtown area, so I wanted to consolidate that information and enhance it to serve as an economic development tool for this small town. The intent was to support a walking tour via smartphone and begin phasing out the printed brochures while still supporting the existing brochures that were still out there and had the old URLs on them. In s

Local News and Information Online

I recentely read an online article with local news. Nowhere in the article does it actually name the state and the name of the publication is generic enough it doesn't give clues as to the location. I poked around the site and found a county name somewhere, maybe in the same article, maybe in a different article. I googled the city name and the spelling is unusual such that it might be a unique city name though there are definitely other cities with names that sound the same. If this article were printed in a physical newspaper bought locally, using just the city name would be fine. You would know from context exactly which city was intended. But when an article is posted online, people can potentially trip across it from anywhere in the world. You are no longer talking to just locals and even if the city name is unique, not everyone will automatically know that. Don't assume your audience will go digging for more info like I did to try to figure out exactly where

My Work

In the movie The Pickup Artist , Molly Ringwald's character utters my all-time favorite movie line: I'm too truthful to be good. I have apparently always been socially insightful. I was probably the bratty child yelling "The emperor has no clothes" and getting away with being rude, crude and socially unacceptable because I was cute as a button. When you are four, people laugh uncomfortably and don't explain to you why they are laughing. Being four, you stupidly think you are a talented comedian and then you spend your twenties and thirties baffled as to why everyone routinely gives you the death glare and wants your head on a pike instead of appreciating your witty insight and sense of humor. Me being me, I didn't stop being honest. I just tried to find ways to express myself that were less likely to have people wanting my head on a pike. This is a large part of why I blog. I still find social stuff very interesting, I see a need in the world for hig

Doreen Michele

Search This Blog