New web portfolio for London-based artist, Gerry Keon.

London based artist, Gerry Keon, approached me to see if I could save his website before it was closed down by his hosting company. The website contained Gerry’s extensive portfolio – drawings and paintings dating back to the 70s – but it was created using website builder app which was soon to be phased out.

Because the website was platform dependant, it was not possible to simply move it to another hosting package. Also, the existing site had some major usability problems – the content needed rationalising and restructuring, and the images of artworks were too small and over-compressed. I therefore recommended that we downloaded a static snapshot of the site for reference, and that I redesign the site and build it from scratch in WordPress.

During the process we needed to collate the original photographs of artwork going back over many years – so that the images on the new site could be the best possible quality. I then re-processed all the images in Photoshop, cropping them in a consistent way onto similar backgrounds. I also decided to animate some of the artworks where Gerry had several photographs of the development of a painting. While these are a little jumpy – the photographs aren’t all taken from the same position – they still add meaning.

The resulting site is simple, clean and easy to navigate, letting Gerry’s artworks shine. And if his new hosting company closes down, I can simply move it to another host!