Las Vegas Art Gallery Website Design

CelestArt - Artist Representative

Artist: Simon Kenevan

'Afternoon Sun' by Simon Kenevan

When the Celestart web design project first began, my client wanted a comprehensive framework to expand his artist's portfolio of work. When we viewed other online galleries we were surprised at the number of outstanding and prolific artists displaying their works on such low-standing website platforms. Equally as poor, were the images attempting to represent their work. Not only were the vast majority of these images poorly lit, most likely taken with a camera utilizing an on-camera flash, but the screen resolution was reduced to a size only qualified for hand-held mobile device resolutions. We thought, how can a patron be expected to become immersed into an original piece of art with a thumbnail image without even offering a slightly larger java script enabled light-box as an alternative?

To launch celestart.com, we showcased renowned artist Simon Kenevan and his impressive body of work. Now, I've always said that great website designs require one measure of technical (the HTML and CSS code etc.), one measure of content (original written copy) and one measure of quality imagery; with that in mind, now's the time for a Vesper Martini. Beginning with the code, we wanted to create a clean, expansive and minimalist design that would be void of the proverbial multi-column side bars loaded with links & advertising, patterned backgrounds, excessive css (cascading style sheet) drop shadows and the rest of the usual suspects that most websites fall victim to - the site needed to be center-focused on the art. For the written copy, we followed suit and asked Simon Kenevan to contribute some meaningful words that captured the moment and vision prior to creating selections from his collection. Lastly, for the images, I insisted that high-resolution files would be the only source to master from. I specially choose just the right compression percentage and pixel dimension to maximize visual quality being sensitive to bandwidth download speeds.

In addition to website design and commercial photography, I've always been passionate about desert landscape photography. Since the nearest true body of water is a long way off from my existence in the Mojave Desert, it's always nice to see other artists who capture the desert's counterpart. To great surprise I was taken back when I first viewed Simon Kenevan's high-res image files - the soft palate of colors were perfectly saturated with a layer of slight embellishment. Most photographs render colors and object's edges with some exaggeration. Here's where I was off-keel ...I wasn't viewing a photograph, I was studying an original oil on canvas [above] by Simon Kenevan. Since the launch of celestart.com, I've had fun asking friends their thoughts on Simon Kenevan's images, all the while not telling them what they are looking at. The results are always the same ...truly stunning and accomplished work.


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