Case Study - Domus Foto

The Domusfoto website was a challenging project, with a complex structure. It is predominantly a portfolio website for viewing photography.

The priorities for this website were:

• Making sure all the images were viewed in the best possible way.
• Ensuring the categorisation of images was easy and effective.
• Design an artistically savvy site that oozed the 'WOW' factor without compromising usability.

Viewing

The client wanted the images to be viewed in a continuous cycle with a smooth blend effect when moving from one photo to the next. For this we designed a portfolio section that allowed the images to fade smoothly from transparent to solid over the top of each other.

These photos can be reached with just one click from the home page. This was achieved without cluttering the navigation around the photos- leaving them to exist in their own space away from the 'bricks and mortar' of a website.

This image displays a stage in the fading motion.

Categorisation

The other images the client had to display were then neatly categorised into projects. Each project has a maximum of 15 images in its gallery exhibiting the very best of the client's work.

It was important that the user was never too many clicks away from their destination image. This created quite a demanding navigational challenge for the website. We went for a design that gave the user two routes to the images: via the top navigation bar (three clicks to a single photo) or via a clickable chain of icons (four clicks to a single photo).

The screen grab below demonstrates how a second menu has been used to keep all navigational options visible whilst a user explores the site.

The WOW Factor

Working with the client, we decided the best way to achieve this was to let the photography do the talking.

We applied a transparent fade to background imagery to make the text more easily legible. The main background image was kept consistent across the site and spot colour was used from this for the various text headings.

The website can be easily updated by the client, from cropping images into thumbnails, to changing the body copy. The site has been built with room for expansion, as the clients range of photography increases.