World Shakespeare Project Isn't ALL Black and White
- Kayleighruc
- Sep 13, 2019
- 2 min read
An open, world-wide program for Shakespeare is presented by Emory University called World Shakespeare Project. Students from India, Northern Africa, and Emory University connect with the project all for the sake of Shakespeare, which makes it a cool program.
Although it presents a unique experience, opening the site isn’t nearly as exciting. Based on other sites I glanced at I was not expecting something quite like this. Right off the bat there is a contrast in design with a simple white background and bland black text. All of the pages are in the center and have a block-like template. However, the text is all left aligned and in pretty small font. To further navigate the website and information, there are tabs on the right side that include conventions such as: home, about, events, programs, photos, videos, and contact. Each open with the same heading and go on into the specific information. That is where repetition plays in, continuing the same font, in black, for all of the text provided.
Throughout each page there are different images of students interacting with each other and the Shakespeare culture. There is a nice simple flow of proximity because the images are in between or next to the text they are associated with. Through the pictures and associated text, the site shows that the audience is international students, Emory University students, and theatre/Shakespeare fans because that is what it is all centered around. The overall purpose of the webpage is to inform visitors of the project, and possibly to draw in new members by giving the information of programs and contact forms. By reading every page in the archive, the information is all on the webpage, but there isn’t enough on the home page alone. Without going beyond the home page, it is not evident what the project is besides a welcoming theatre group. It only becomes prevalent of how open and worldwide it is when viewing other tabs such as about.
Using videos and photos to showcase the diversity and programs the World Shakespeare Project offers is the best quality of the website. People viewing it will get a feel for the atmosphere and attitude of the project through those mediums.
The worst aspect of the archive is the bland-ness of the design. There is room and opportunity to make a very cute or beautiful Shakespearean site but they just chose black and white with the most boring font. Even if the site took up the whole computer screen, I feel it would look better. If I were running this archive I would work harder to use the design elements of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. It lost my attention due to the design.
World Shakespeare Project has a simple yet unsophisticated feel to it, which overall hurts their promotion. However, using the photos and videos as they did is an excellent idea for future projects. I personally don’t have any inspiration or ideas from the archive for my own website. Hopefully I can create something better!
I completely agree that this website is poorly executed in terms of design. Many of the tabs seem brief, with very little information compared to the other archives. There is so much valuable, unused space on the page, that goes completely unutilized, consequently making the pages look plain and uninteresting. I also agree that their presentation of videos was well done, however, and should maybe be considered when making our own class archive.
I definitely agree that this website could have benefitted from some improvements in design and layout. While the archive does present a sufficient amount of information, it does so in a way that is not particularly interesting to the reader. The homepage is lacking in the sense that it is not attention-grabbing nor does it have the potential to make the viewer want to delve deeper into the website. I also agree that while the images provided are helpful in demonstrating what the World Shakespeare Project has to offer, the website needs more elements to catch the audience's eye. I think that we can apply our analysis of the website when creating our own because it has shown us how…