 The site was first lauched on November 9 1999 and lasted to mid September 2000 when it was decommisioned for the launch of the 2:1 site in conjunction with the release of "Blackarts". This was neceassary because the "plastic fantastic" look of the two first sites were - although nice to look at - not much atune with the imagery of the first CD released. It is rather apparent that the graphics of the site follow the different phases of the Elvira Madigan past; and the "green sites" (with a rather unprofessional look) represents the era of when nothing was available and nothing was really that certain. I only saw to the actual recordings and never any eventual physical releases. |
|
Site no 2: The last "Plastic Fantastic" site So as soon as I had grown aware that the facial imagery of the 1:1 site just didn't work I threw this design together. I still had rather basic knowledge of how to utilize my graphic software and the quality of the imagery was a direct result thereof. It was surprisingly fair and pleasing to look at though with its' green "smokey" design.  Click image for close-up The mainpage was a direct decendant from the 1:1 site and You always had to go back to this page to go somewhere else on the site. Everything was steered from here. Since I didn't send out any vast amount of promocopies in order to get signed, I added a new section called "Recordcompanies Inn" so that in case eventual interested outside parties had a special line of communication. However, it was probably this section that spawned the "Rip-off" situation I got into with a certain character who luckily didn't succeed. Read all about that in the "Trying to rip me off, are You?" section. Something else that was new from the main-page was an updates section called "What's New?" at the bottom. But I still had the "Releases..." and "Tracklist..." sections divided. But as explained in the liner notes of the 1:1 presentation, this was due to the fact that I didn't really have that much to feature on a site.  Click image for close-up Lets say You clicked on the "Introduction" on the "Main-page". What You would see is something like the image above. Even by todays standars these sections look rather nice. The "smoke" that floats behind the text and the EM logotype all make out a quite pleasing visual effect. However, it only looked like this in a 800x600 resolution and the effect had been much better should the background stay fixed once one scrolled up and down the page.****  Click image for close-up The image above shows an example of how the trackdetails of a certain song looked like. As an added design I differed between the songs from the "Blackarts" album and the "Elvira Madigan". Above is shown the design for a song from "Blackarts" with the same green imagery as the rest of the site while below is an example of a song from the selftitled debut (which was all red).  Click image for close-up
|
(...Continuing from left column:) The fact that I split up the trackdetails and the lyrics into two different documents shows how I desired the site to be larger than it needed to be. But then again, that was all due to the fact that I didn't have much else to feature on the site. "Trackdetails and Lyrics" were in truth the only really important section since it provided all the substantial information at the time available. The "Introduction" page was of course also rather important since it explained my intentions while the "History" could only bring up my previous band - much due to the fact no history had yet been written!  Click image for close-up Anyway, above is an example of how a lyric was presented. Compared to the previous site-design this was a smaller step back but I did figure that so much design was incorporated in the rest of the homepage that I needed to balance things up a little. This point of view must always be taken into consideration while designing stuff. Dates Memorobilia: 9 November (1999): The site is launched 16 January (2000): I make official the attempted Rip-Off I was subjected to. Read more about it at the "Trying to rip me off, are You?" section. 10-12 March: I am away at a "skyclad" convention and am treated with enormous hospitality. Their webmaster Vince Brotheridge (now running Amust4Music and the Bloodstock festivals) even put up a link with my banner from their site. Since EM is completely unreleased at this time, this kind of treatment from a recognized band having released a dozen of titles felt unworldly and I could do nothing else than write about it on my site. On their site I proudly pose in front of their poster! Ha! 10 May: Mr Goran the ripper (-offer) is back and dislikes my official comments on his stealing crusade. He wants me to remove my article in exchange for material from another band he has managed to steal from. Once again, to read more about it the "Trying to rip me off, are You?" section applies. 12 July: I make official that "Blackarts" (which was here called "Svartkonst & Tusenskönor") will go into print and that I will release it myself. I have due to great demand photographed myself yet the result will only be featured on the coming site. I also tell of the first song in English which is finished recorded (yes, during this time "Witches..." is recorded!). I also claim that Madigan Studios have been "grossly updated" which is a huge overstatement, but it probably felt like that back then. 28 August: I make Northlore Records official - my own little recordcompany! 20 September: The site is killed off! So here ends the reign of the "plastic fantastic" era and the green smoke. A completely new design is lanched after this site is put to rest. And from here on it seems a new design is launched as soon as a new album is released. "Blackarts" awaits its first edition release and for this the elviramadigan.com 2:1 Version marks the beginning of a new era. From here on everything seems gilded. Who said silence was golden anyway!? Now, do take a look at the 2:1 Version...section. Read More...  |