In Search of The Perfect Website: The Whitney Redesigns

by Art Fag City on November 13, 2009 · 10 comments Events

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON
art fag city, whitney.org
Screenshot AFC

The last major museum 2000-era website finally bit the dust yesterday. Congratulations to the web team at The Whitney for launching the new site. As far as I’m concerned, the website is an improvement on the old, even if I’m not thrilled with the typeface hierarchy and layout. There’s a lot of information on these pages, and the font sizing and weight doesn’t always make sense.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this site is the ability to build and share your own collection of images from shows. MoMA has a similar feature on their newly launched site, though frankly I’ve found the number of image rollovers and drop down menus so distracting on the site that I’ve barely used the tool.

My hope is that someone eventually builds a Mag.ma or last.fm type site for museums and galleries so users can build “collections” from sites all over the country in one localized spot. A website that keeps a record of the shows you see, offers recommendations based on the artists you like, and gives users the ability to “follow” one another, which would increase the amount of art people see (at least in reproduction) by a level of magnitude. It would also be likely to rake in a fair amount of cash. After all, who doesn’t want their favorite art in poster, mug and wine bottle form? There’s an art world developer out there who is just one cafe-press partnership away from making bank.

{ 10 comments }

Perry Garvin November 13, 2009 at 10:38 pm

My review of the Whitney’s website redesign at

http://bit.ly/1nteI5

Perry

Perry Garvin November 13, 2009 at 6:38 pm

My review of the Whitney’s website redesign at

http://bit.ly/1nteI5

Perry

Atok November 14, 2009 at 1:56 am

Can I take that idea? It´s just so luscious, it´d work marvels.

Atok November 13, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Can I take that idea? It´s just so luscious, it´d work marvels.

Jeffrey Chills November 14, 2009 at 6:54 am

My hope is that someone eventually builds a Mag.ma or last.fm type site for museums and galleries so users can build “collections” from sites all over the country in one localized spot. A website that keeps a record of the shows you see, offers recommendations based on the artists you like, and gives users the ability to “follow” one another, which would increase the amount of art people see (at least in reproduction) by a level of magnitude.

To some extent NY Art Beat does this, actually.

Jeffrey Chills November 14, 2009 at 2:54 am

My hope is that someone eventually builds a Mag.ma or last.fm type site for museums and galleries so users can build “collections” from sites all over the country in one localized spot. A website that keeps a record of the shows you see, offers recommendations based on the artists you like, and gives users the ability to “follow” one another, which would increase the amount of art people see (at least in reproduction) by a level of magnitude.

To some extent NY Art Beat does this, actually.

Art Fag City November 14, 2009 at 11:54 pm

I find the site hard to navigate. Where is the “open now” heading for example?

Art Fag City November 14, 2009 at 7:54 pm

I find the site hard to navigate. Where is the “open now” heading for example?

Lauren November 15, 2009 at 3:35 am
Lauren November 14, 2009 at 11:35 pm

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