Site no 2: The last Plastic site
As soon as I had grown aware that the facial imagery of the 1:1 site just didn't work I got this design done. 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 pleasant to look at though with its' green "smokey" design.
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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.
Since I didn't send out any vast amount of promocopies in order to get signed, I added a new section called "Recordcompanies Inn" in case a company would take interest. However, it was probably this section that spawned the "Rip-off" situation I got into with a certain character who luckily didn't succeed.
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. 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.
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Lets say You clicked on the "Introduction" on the "Main-page". What You would see would be something like the image above.
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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.
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(...Continuing from left column:)
The fact that I split up the trackdetails and the lyrics into two different documents shows how I tried to make the site appear larger than it really was. But then again, that was all due to the fact that I didn't have much else to feature on it. "Trackdetails and Lyrics" were in truth the only really important section since it provided all the substantial information available at that time. 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.
Dates Memorobilia:
9 November (1999):
The site is launched
16 January (2000):
I make official the attempted Rip-Off I was subjected to.
10-12 March:
I am away at a "skyclad" convention and am treated with enormous hospitality. Their webmaster Vince Brotheridge (founder of Amust4Music and the Bloodstock festival) 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.
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.
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. 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 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!?
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