Web art and web design are two terms which can be mistaken as referring to the same concept. Do these two terms refer to a separate concept of their own and if so what fundamental guidelines can we use to distinguish web design from web art?
When most web designers and web developers come across the term web design we are automatically bombarded with images and ideas regarding the form and functionality of a web site. The term web design to me refers to the production of web related material which serves a role and has meaning. The role being played by this web material can be as simple as promoting a product or informing users about something. Basically if the web content is acting to “do” something such as sell a product it is a product of design.
To me the term web art relates to the aesthetical aspects of a website or any artwork using a website as a means of propagation. The pieces of web art have a simple purpose, to communicate a message through it’s form.
Let us examine a website to explore these two terms.
This website belong to IDAD, the freelance design studio of talented designer Eric Smith. I intentionally chose to examine this website because gallery websites such as this one seem to lay on the elusive borderline between design and art. I explained above that I separate design and art based on functionality, where products of design serve a purpose whilst products of art serve to communicate an idea.
The functional form of the IDAD website is that of a gallery of previously made CG work. Upon seeing this form we would intuitively classify this website as an art based website; one which uses the web to propagate the ideas of previous work.
However on closer inspection it can be seen that this gallery is serving a very functional purpose. The gallery acts as a means of advertisement, a way of selling a product. The product in this situation however is the designer himself, Eric Smith.
Thus although this page actually posses a form which we would associate with an artwork based website this website is clearly an overall product of design, serving as a means of marketing and promoting this freelance design studio.
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