Research
Competitive Analysis
We viewed two different kinds of websites during the early stages of this project: those that deal with art, and those that deal with space.
Art websites
We found that most art websites are devoted to selling art. These sites tend to organize artists wrk by subect matter or medium, but not by artist. Some of these allow for a broad search but many only allow the user to choose options from predetermined lists. Alternatively, artsts sometimes choose to sell their work on personal websites, where a user can see ther whole body of work, however these may not get as many hits as a large art selling website does.
The other type of art websites are museum sites, which put a portion of their collections online for public viewing. These use online art as advertisement for visiting the museum. While a user can spend time viewing the art online, they have only a limited selection at each museum site.
We have not found any websites that were found that allow users to view both museum quality art and local art together and none that allow the user to save art they like in a personal page and curate their collection.
Space websites
The second form of websites we looked at were ones that used space in interesting and unique ways. These sites gave us an understanding of the way the web can use and create spaces, rooms, panoramic scenes, and virtual worlds. It enabled us to make an informed decision about whether we wanted our paintings to hang in a more traditional way or reside in a less traditional virtual space. Through our research, we felt that there are clear ways that a traditional “wall” can become 3 dimensional enough to create a fun and interactive experience while maintaining fidelity to how paintings reside on gallery walls in real life.
