| Kyutai Fansite |
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This fansite was created as a challenge I wanted to give myself. I really enjoy the artwork that was used for Mucc's album, Kyutai, so I decided that I would try and recreate the artwork to the best of my ability and see if it was possible to convert the album cover into a website. I also wanted to have a quick try at using Javascript which would be used as page transitions. Working with Photoshop (I don't own Illustrator), I scanned the album art from the Kyutai CD and also the front of the Live Chronicle III DVD boxset and began using the Pen Tool to trace the artwork. I did this in stages starting with the lower tribal design followed by the higher tribal design, the circle motifs, the border and the cracks. It took me about a week to complete as there was a lot to do but I took a shortcut when I realised that all I needed to do was replicate half of the design I needed and then copy and flip it to match on the other side. It saved me quite a lot of time and I am quite happy with the result. The next part was to build the website. I knew that I wanted the content to be contained inside a frame so that I can add a lot of depth to the design. To achieve that, I taught myself how to use the z-index CSS property. I began to have trouble when it came to getting the content to focus so I used a script engine called Prototype to solve that problem. Now whenever someone scrolls over the content, it will auto-focus and scroll as intended. The downside to that is that the user must have a scroll wheel on their mouse otherwise the content won't move. I also added some page fade effects to the site so that it would look a lot smoother. Although the content isn't the key to this project, I created some wallpapers and other downloadables just for that site. I also used my review that I had written about the album (See below for link) and things like the tracklist and links so that the site wouldn't be just one page. Different background colours were used as a way to test what is easy to read. A lot of designers say that red backgrounds are bad for the reader but I believe, after doing this test, that as long as the red is quite dark and there isn't too much content on the screen, it should be okay. I wanted to make the background of the index page a replica of the album art but since I also wanted to add content as well, it would have been too hard to read so I decided to use the most basic of shapes from the album art. As mentioned above, this project was intended as a personal challenge. I am pleased with the overall result even though I have noticed one or two flaws. I wanted to make sure the site looks good and I have done that. However, this might be the only website I ever build that's based on the design of an album cover. To read the Kyutai review, visit http://www.zardosdemon.com/blog/86-mucc-kyutai-review Note: I do not claim the artwork as my own. I believe that credit belongs to Toshiaki Uchikoshi and Tatsuo Ikeda from King Tong and Universal respectively. To see the website in action, view the video below:
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