Recently Launched "Virtual Museum" Website Is a Tour Through Art History

Portfolio Website Design and Development to Showcase Both Art and Theory

An accomplished artist with a remarkable breadth of work in his portfolio, Bob Zube is also an academically minded theorist. He developed “Zube's Theory of Artifacts and Creative Strategies” to describe the four continuums he sees as present in artistic creation: the manipulation of process; the manipulation of content; the manipulation of process and content; and the manipulation of neither process nor content. Bob categorizes his art with these four continuums in mind and recently asked the efelle team to bring his vision to life online. This “virtual museum” is now alive and well on the web and lives under the moniker “Zubeum of Art.”

Website Design and Development Objectives

The Zubeum’s primary objective is to offer visitors a new way to view and understand art via a delightful showcase of Bob’s work and writing. Accomplishing this allows Bob the chance to both display his extensive portfolio online and to extend his authority on art theory via well-crafted content and a rich personal biography.

Website Design and Development Opportunities and Successes

To meet the Zubeum team’s main objectives, our team kept focus on creating a stellar user experience for all visitors throughout the design process. We set out to make navigating through each “continuum” intuitive and encourage users to view the artwork in a specific order depending on their active continuum. Because each element within Bob’s theories presents a different way to view art, we wanted to ensure viewers can enjoy the art from beginning to end via a very specific user path.

Our design showcases Bob's work—both art and theory—in a clean, museum-esque manner, making use of numbered sections to guide user flow in the same way an art museum steers visitors through its exhibitions. In case users get lost, each section within the Zubeum “exhibition” can be accessed via a tidy hamburger menu in the top right-hand corner of each page; clicking here opens up a full-screen menu offering easy access to the whole website and featuring cleans lines and fonts tailored perfectly to the intended experience.

A big part of bringing Bob's brick-and-mortar museum to life online was our judicious use of negative space throughout the entire website which ensures that the art remains the primary focal point across all pages. Likewise, our team employed a neutral color palette throughout the website, using soft pink accents to add unobtrusive character.

Load-screen animations lend an extra element of sophistication to the website, as do subtle hover animations and the vintage-style serif font used in headings (which acts as a perfect complement to the sans-serif font used elsewhere throughout the site).

Our team also designed bright white subpages to house content not explicitly dedicated to Bob’s art and theories; these create space for the Zubeum team to share additional information on things like the quilting work of Bob’s wife Eileen and how to contact the Zubes for lecture availability.

On a whole, the Zubeum gives visitors a unique look into the world of art, offering both a stunning portfolio of work to explore as well as a lens through which to assess that work. Bringing this vision to life online was at once a pleasure and a challenge.

Go check out the Zubeum now!

Looking for Website Design and Development that Captures Your Unique Vision? Give Our Team a Shout!

Over the years, our team at efelle creative has designed and developed websites for a large variety of industries, and we're always looking for one-of-a-kind projects that bring new life to the World Wide Web. We both talk the talk and walk the walk—and have over a hundred design awards to prove it. If you’re ready to start on a website redesign project, give us a shout at 206.384.4909 or reach us via our online contact form. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.