New! Tutorial Galleries

Howdy. Been a while since I got a chance to really do something new with the website. It's been a longstanding request, so I decided to sit down and make some tutorial galleries to help aspiring gallery designers make their galleries look less "standard".

http://lantern1.rubberslug.com
http://lantern2.rubberslug.com
http://lantern3.rubberslug.com
http://lantern4.rubberslug.com

Feel free to ask any questions in this thread about how any of these galleries were constructed. These galleries are all 100% done with the Rubberslug editor. (I cheated and added a red and gray color to the db though... that color picker thing is a piece of crap, I really need to replace it with something that will let you pick any color.)

Also, feel free to steal any ideas/inspiration you may derive from these. Eventually, I'll add some of my own cels to these galleries to show a consistent style and make them look more like working galleries.

the fourth gallery was pretty darn cool. i had been thinking of a request kind of. if you could somehow make it so the text block is somewhat transparent. like which ever color you pic, you make it kind of hazy so you could see the background behind it. hm...just an idea, but i love the 4th gallery!

Wow jason, those are excellent. The second one really really really appeals to me! I struggled with the "left alignment" feature for a while. I couldn't quite figure out a design that would work for it. I even tried it (and I thought it looked horrible). But you work with it perfectly.

Currently, my design is really simple and boring (compared to past designs). I am trying to think up another one - and this post just gave me some inspiration. Wonderful!

Neat idea! I like the 4th design. This is another assignment that I'll be tackling during winter break. >.< Woes me the HTML illiterate oaf!

[quote]...those are excellent.[/quote]

Actually, I'm pretty sure I stole one or more of those from somewhere. I did this partially to help gallery builders and partially just as a mental warmup since I need to start building websites for rent again.

Soapbox moment: The Picasso quote, "Good artists copy, great artists steal," is horribly misappropriated by lazy, young designers (not just the web kind) as an excuse for flipping through design annuals and regurgitating nearly verbatim. However, you can't do this sort of thing in a vacuum. Dissassemble things you like and add something personal to it, or better yet, make it twice as interesting as when you found it. I find that this makes more sense if your creative inspiration comes from multiple domains. If you're gonna steal web design, steal from architecture, steal from stageplays, steal from music, etc.

Okay, done. =)

But I forgot to attach notes... the comps were supposed to each be educational in their own way:

1) That strange, angular style that was big a few years ago. It's actually my personal cel gallery in a mild puree and stripped of some detail. Useful to see how to recycle design without looking like you recycled it.

2) How do you make left justified look good? Fill the right side up with a clever background image. Old trick, still works pretty painlessly. The white on red is such an old idea I don't know where I stole it from.

3) Is this still popular? I never really cared for this style much. It's a product of the "Flash-only" trend, I guess.

4) Using the serif typeset. I'm sure this came from somewhere, but I just don't remember where. Oh, the background is a piece of promotional art that got the airbrush fade treatment.

Hope people find this useful.

jn