Site Critique: White Rabbit

http://www.geocities.jp/yoshidameme/

My artwork has a lot of Japanese influence, so when designing my website, I the portfolios of Japanese painters in the video games industry. My friend sent me a link to White Rabbit. Good design shows through when I am still able to navigate the pages without understanding any of the language.

Effective portfolio sites have a limited number of pages. It lets the viewer focus on the work. White Rabbit is no different. The grid layout mainly does not change. There is a nicely drawn header image made from the artist’s work, but it has an obvious Photoshop feather on the edges. The image is also very large, so the content page gets pushed down and, on very small resolution, has a change of being pushed under the fold. The menu is on the left sidebar. The words are in English, but they are direct, so Japanese users can understand them. They are small, but they are easily seen because they are red. However, their size also makes them hard to click. The only item that I do not understand is “Clap,” and the following page also does not help. I feel it might be a comic book the artist worked on or a contact page since there is a form. There is no way, other than by content, to determine what page the user is at. I cannot say too much about the typography since it is in Japanese, but the links style is consistently red, matching the menu and the header image. Headers are denoted by a “>” symbol. Using icons that are relatively plain, similar to text, keeps them from getting visually overcomplicated. I also like the form for e-mail contact because it does not open any new programs.


Similar to Jason Chan’s site, from my previous review, the “Work” link takes the user to an entirely different page. However, these visually inconsistent pages still allow you to return to the home. The gallery page maintains the menu from the previous page, but it runs vertically down the right, alongside the thumbnails. Paginating the thumbnails frees up space for the actual images which are so big, they are usually made of tables of smaller images. The background color sometimes changes to complement a picture. This would bother me on some sites, but the White Rabbit gallery is simple enough that its usage here is artful. I enjoy the descriptions of materials with images of her tools. In addition, tutorials would be nice as well.

White Rabbit is a simple page, and it will display on almost any browser because of the pure HTML format. Some of the visual design aspects are cheesy, but the site is effective without to may bells or whistles. It lets users truly focus on the artwork. I enjoy the page, but I have doubt about how well American audiences would receive this because the URL is not very easy for American users to remember. Furthermore, it is hosted on Geocitites which is considered a amateur mark here in the United States.