OUGD501 - Lecture 3: The Gaze and The Media

'According to the usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.' (Berger 1972)

• Berger is saying women internalise the gaze - see themselves in the way they see images around them

• Hans Memling 'Vanity' (1485) - mirror is a device. She is looking at herself so we can look at her too. Berger picks up on the contradiction.
• 1485 is a time when there was harsh judgement on women outside the ideal at the time

• Mirror appears in contemporary advertising and fashion all the time

• Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863 - invited by the artist to gaze upon the woman

• Sophie Dahl for Opium - turned onto it's side so the emphasis changes so it could pass advertising regulations

• Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), Manet's 'Olympia' (1863) - Berger draws the difference between them. Woman in 'Olympia' is looking straight, challenging the gaze. Hand position is more definite.
• Berger also looks at 'Le Grand Odalisque', Igres (1914)
• Gurrilla Girls challenge the amount of women in modern art vs the amount of nudes of women

• Manet - Bar at the Folies Bergeres (1882) - what's reflected in the mirror behind her is the Paris society that she's not a part of - her reflection in the mirror is not what it should be
• Jeff Wall 'Picture For Women' (1979) - Recreation of the 'Bar at the Folies Bergeres' - split reflection into thirds. Hard to work out where you are compared to the woman.

• Coward, R, (1984) - 'The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets'
• Normalisation of the display of the female body referring to the billboard tradition
• Eva Hezigova, (1994)
• 'The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as obsessive distancing of women...a form on voyeurism - Coward on Peeping Tom, 1960
• Objectification of male bodies in the media - D&G ad, 2007 - every male returns the gaze - no passive positioning that you get with the female

• Marilyn: William Travillas dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Zelda Pollock
• Atemisia Gentileschi - Judith Behading Holofernes (1620) - looks at this as there is unusual violent females.
• Pollock argues that women are generally being left out of art history.
• Women 'marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history'
• This supports the 'hegemony of men in cultural practice, in art
• There are artists who are addressing this issue - Cindy Sherman, 'Untitled film still #6' (199-79) - similar to what is going on in Sophie Dahl image - turned upright, more focus on her face. Mirror is face down, denied the narrative to look at her without her looking back - is an awkwardness to the gesture - challenges the gaze - not allowed to look on her without feeling the awkwardness. Comes up regularly in her film stills
• Sherman also creates history portraits

• Barbara Kruger, 'Your gaze hits the side of my face' (1981)- Uses text to look like cut out of the newspaper - reference to violence - challenges idea of looking at the female body
• Sarah Lucas 'Eating a Banana' (1990) - humorous work with a serious message
• Sarah Lucas 'Self portrait with fried eggs' (1996)
• Tracy Emin 'Money Photo' (2001)

• Caroline Lucas MP in June 2013 - wanted to bring the issue of page three - was asked to change her t-shirt in parliament even though The Sun is available to buy
• Criado-Perez argued that as the Equality Act 2010 commits public institutions to end discrimination - he received up to 50 threats a day via Twitter including threats to rape and murder - campaign to represent women on British currency
• Lucy-Ann Holmes, who founded the campaign to end the publication of topless 'Page 3 girls' in the sun newspaper last year - also received death threats
• Aspect of social networking that can be used to perpetuate the gaze
• Susan Sontag (1979) 'On Photography' - 'To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed'
• Paparazzi shot of Princess Diana
• Reality Television - appears to offer us the position as the all-seeing eye - the power of the gaze
• Allows us a voyeuristic passive consumption of a type of reality
• Editing means there is no reality
• Contestants are aware of their representation (either is TV professionals or as people who have watched the show)
• The Truman Show (1988)
• Big Brother - making voyeurism an everyday activity
• 'Looking is not indifferent. There can never ben any question of 'just looking'.' - Victor Burgin (1982)

OUGD504 - Design For Web - Study Task 4/Website Layout Research

The audience that I am working to is designers/people who are interested in my topic of hand drawn type.

I spoke to a number of people on what they would expect to find on a website of this topic and what they would like to see/how they would like it to work.

Their needs:

• Visual images
• Context & reason behind the work/what it is for
• A variety of different designers, work & situations for the work
• Easy to navigate website with clear links/buttons
• Clear layout if content is large - gridded systems - no cluttering
• Sub-categories
• Creative use of hand drawn type throughout the website itself
• Not just an archive - some personality/potential blog updating with new additions of work
• Links to works origin
• Videos of work in motion
• Comments from the designers themselves
• Simple colour scheme so it doesn't draw away from the content
• Type web animations
• Responsive design for phones/tablets

I then looked into websites which incorporated hand drawn type into their websites to see how well it all worked

Overall there is a mixture to the approach of using hand drawn type. Some use it for headings/navigation, others use it for body text and the overall tone of voice for the whole website. It all depends on the content and the message that they want to put across.

My opinion is that using hand drawn type on websites makes the page a lot more relaxed and playful than using digital typefaces. It gives the website a personality, and this is something that I would like to convey when designing my website.

The first website design has the most personality to it as it is for a specific designer who is obviously interested in combing digital and hand-drawn elements. The use of icons for the links gives a bit of quirkiness as well. The whole layout of this website is almost like the designer drew it out in hand and scanned it in. This makes it stand out in this subject area compared to the others below it.

The last website design is using hand drawn type and design as a way to appeal to the users of this website. It is for yoga, and the general idea of people who do yoga is that those people are interested in natural, ethical products and things in the world. The design for this website attracts a completely different audience to the first website design, which shows the huge variety of tones of voice and audience that this aesthetic can give.

After looking at these, I looked into websites that I personally found appealing, forgetting all about the hand drawn type element and just looking at the general design decisions that I like visually.

I then looked into some websites that I found visually appealing.

I found that the websites I liked the most are the ones which are simple and very clear, with large images and with a set colour throughout the website. I like the websites which have a grid of images or articles as pages I find this way of navigation more interactive for the user.

The websites that I prefer are the ones with the larger navigation bars at the top. Each button is given a large amount of space, and all of these seem to just have one large image below it for the rest of the page. These layouts are simple, but very effective because of how visually bold they are.

These are all generally the complete opposite to the website designs incorporating hand drawn type. Those websites have a lot less structure and limitations on their designs, whereas these ones are built through the same wireframes for each page and a consistency.

I the tried find websites which had a simple, clean layout, but also incorporated hand drawn elements, whether it be type or image. I found that the majority of the ones with what I was looking for had a very similar style, a large image of hand-drawn/hand rendered work, and a simple sans serif navigation bar/buttons along the top.

I also found this article which talks about hand drawing style in web design: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/03/hand-drawing-style-in-modern-web-design/

Although these websites do incorporate both elements, the clean simple design & hand drawn design, I do find that these don't appeal to me as much as either of the other two kinds I have been looking at. It seems that there hasn't been much of an advance in the way of incorporating the two together to create a website. This is something that I could definitely explore while doing this brief.

As part of the brief we have to consider how our websites will look on a tablet or phone, so I looked at some responsive websites, which change completely when put onto one of these devices. This will give me an insight into some of the features and designs which are consistent throughout the websites when they are put onto a smaller screen. These websites onto tablets/phones are also working on the fact that they will be touchscreen based media, so I will need to take into account the usability and size of each section/buttons through the designs.

Responsive websites

As part of the brief we have to consider the layout for the website in the different formats it could come in, for example a phone or tablet. I looked into responsive designed websites to see how they translate from the original computer screen design to one for the mobile or tablet.

As the phone and tablet formats are touch based instead of a mouse, the websites designs need to be made in a way which makes interactivity as easy as possible. Looking through the examples I found, a lot of them were either scroll down type of tap a button. The layouts are much more simple and more about the content than the overall aesthetic of the website, just having a few key points to show what website it is. 

On a computer screen, a lot more information can be seen at once so the designer has a lot of leeway in terms of the visuals. On a phone screen, it is much more limited and needs to be as easy to use as possible. 

The websites have been stripped down to their simplest form, just including the title and a small navigation bar before going into the content, text or image based. The majority of the computer websites have a homepage which is only the size of the screen, however on the mobile designs, these are made to be scrollable or are condensed down to fit onto the smaller screen.

Visually, I think that the dieline works best as a responsive website. It doesn't change the aesthetics much in terms of the content used and style in which it is all set out. It is all very clear and have a focus on the images instead of having a lot of menu bars like other responsive apps.

OUGD501 - Seminar 3: Identity

• Essentialism- Some sort of innate characteristic - some people are born a criminal etc. - A pseudo-science
• Anti-essentialism proposes that we can reinvent ourselves constantly

Identity & 'The other' in visual representations

• Creation of identities
• Concepts or 'otherness'
• Analysis of visual example

Identity Creation

What makes you, you?

• Essentialist things - physical features etc.
• Parents/socilaisation
• Money
• Environment/era
• Diet
• Education
• Relationship status
• Personality
• Lifestyle

How do we express our identity?

• Mannerisms
• Social interactions
• Hobbies
• Possessions
• Accents
• Social associations - social circles

These are are subjectivities which create a sense of self. It is arrived at by a dynamic of these two lists.

The circuit of culture - Stuart Hall

Culture is the framework within which our identities are formed, expressed and regulated.

Representation - affected by what we buy and and how we present ourselves

Identity - social stereotypes - what you are expected to have/be

Production - what you do in society - a job

Consumption - what we buy/our consumption of products

Regulations - limitations of society

Identity Formation

Psychoanalyst - Jaques Lacan

• Identity is created and solidified through childhood - 'The Mirror Stage'
• Sense of self (subjectivity) built on receiving views from others
• This subjectivity is based on an illusion of wholeness & independence - the result is own subjectivity is fragile

Constructing the 'other'

• In the same way that we create our own identities, in opposition to what we are not, so does a society.
• To solidify our identity, we remove ourselves against what we are not - in the same way that we create our own identities - in opposition to what we are not - so does society
• Problems: relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness
• Shares up unstable identities through the illusion of unity

Task: Analyse one image from the media that attempts to secure an identity for the reader at the expense of others and what it offers you by doing this (Approx 300 words)

The image above is one that I found from an old national newspaper. It shows two very different stories, put on a page together to balance each other out and balance out the reader. The first is a story about the riots in Egypt, the second an avert for lastminute.com, talking about last minute holiday/activity deals for friends.

Focussing on the advertisement, it has been placed on a page with a story which is something in a completely different country, but still well known about all over the world. This is placed here to give the reader a sense of normality. When the reader looks at the image and story about Egypt, anxiety and empathy for the situation will arise, however, the moment they look  to the advertisement, they know that it is worlds away and doesn’t directly affect them. This is a form of othering as it shows a reader a serious situation what is happening, but then sugarcoats it with the advertisement and shows them that currently that story is of no threat to their everyday life and well being, and that instead this advertisement is something that will benefit their life immediately.

The imagery between the two is ironic. The people in each image are doing the same poses, with the hands in the air, but for two completely contrasting reasons. In the first, it is out of fury and indignation, but in the second it is because they are having fun and enjoying themselves. It is immediately more relatable to the reader, and shows what the reader could be experiencing right now if they follow the advertisement, putting them worlds away from the situation in the article. It gives the reader the sense of security and of being in a more civilised and solidified society than the one read about.

OUGD501 - Lecture 2: Identity

• To introduce historical conceptions of identity
• To introduce Foucaults discourse methodology
• To place and critique contemporary practice within their frameworks, and to con sider their validity
• To consider postmodern theories of identity as guild and constructed (in particular Zygmunt Bauman)
• To consider identity today, especially in the digital domain

Essentialism

• Our biological make up makes us who we are
• We all have an inner essence that make us who we are
• Post modern theorists disagree

• Physiognomy - the idea that race dictates intelligence - how facial structures determines how smart you are - relates to Nazi Germany's mission to keep the perfect people (Blonde hair, blue eyes, etc)
• Phrenology - the idea that the brain is made up of different parts
• Cesare Lobomroso (1835 - 1909) - founder of positivist criminology - the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited

• Hieronymous Bosch (1450 - 1516) - Christ carrying the cross, 1515
• Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary, 1996

Douglas Kellner - Media Culture
Pre modern

• Personal identity is stable - define by png standing roles
• Related to the church, monarchy, government etc.
• Secure identities:
• Farm worker....landed gentry
• Soldier....the state
• Housewife...patriarchy
• Husband-wife...marriage/church

Modern identity

• Modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibilities to start 'choosing' your identity, rather than simply being born into it.
• Charlies Baudelaire - The painter of modern life (1863)
• Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
• Boudelaire - introduces concept of the 'flaneur' (Gentleman-stroller)
• Veblen - Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods in a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure
• Simmel - Trickle down theory. Emulation. Distinction. The 'Mask' of Fashion.
• 'The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stinger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on the train, or in traffic of a large city.'

Post modern

• Can change to who you want to be. Identity is constructed out of the disco use culturally available to us.
• 'Discourse analysis'
• Michael Foucault
• Possible discourses: Age, class, race/ethnicity, education, income etc.
• Class 
• In order to know which class you are in, you need to know what the other classes are and how/why they are that class.
• Humphrey/Spender/Mass Observation, Worktown project, 1937 - project to observe Britain - upper class photographers going up to Bolton (Working class) to observe them - took stereotypical pictures etc. - making assumptions of working class people
• Martin Parr, New Brighton, Merseyside, from The Last Resort, 1983 - 86 - potentially condescending photographs of working class on holiday - almost like a self congratulatory way of looking at people of a lower class
• Society...reminds one of particularly shrew, cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life, cheating if five a chance, flouting rules whenever possible' - Bauman (2004)
• Nationality
• Martin Parr images again - stereotypical images
• McQueen fashion show - Much of the press coverage centred around accusations of misogyny because of the imagery of semi-maked staggering and brutalised women, in conjunction with the world 'rape' in the title. But McQueen claimed that the rape was of Scotland, not the individual models as the theme of the show was the Rebellion.
• Papanek, V (1995)
• Race/ethnicity
• Chris Ofili - starts thinking about the perceptions of black people - references to black culture
• Gillian Wearing - made a series of photographs in 1992 - won the Turner prize 
• Gender
• Emily Bates - 'Hair has been a big issue throughout my life...it is often felt that I was nothing more than my hair in other peoples eyes' (red head)
• The fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men
• A gigantic unconscious hoax perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the Cold War - male homosexuals
• Femininity

• In post modernity identity is constructed through our social experience
• Erving Goffman - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
• Goffman saw life as 'theatre'
• Bauman - Identity (2004), Liquid Modernity (200), Liquid Love (2003)
• Andy Hargreaves - 'Introspection is a disappearing act. Faced with moments alone in their cars, on the street or at supermarket checkouts, more and more people do not collect their thoughts, but scan their mobile phone messages for shreds of evidence that someone, somewhere may need or want them'
• Levitt - 'We use art, architecture, literature, and the rest, and advertising as well, to shield ourselves in advance of experience, from the stark and plain reality in which we're fated to live'
• Descartes - Enlightenment philosopher: 'I think there I am'
• Barbara Kruger, I shop therefore I am
• Darley, Visual Digital Culture (2000)
• Hodgkinson, 'With friends like these...' Guardian, (2008)
• Bauman, Identity (2004)

OUGD504 - Design For Web Hand Drawn Type Research

As the websites we are creating are to be based on what we did for our summer brief, I put together a quick summation of the content I will be using for each page of my website.
I am planning on having five pages all together with four pages of content:

• Anatomy of type
• Hand-drawn vs digital type
• Videos of hand drawn type
• The history of type

Anatomy of type

Hand drawn vs digital
hand-drawn typography is used to evoke the feelings of:

• raw, organic, earthy
• a retro, pre-computer age
• juvenile and teenage years
• comics, zines
• handmade, homegrown
• indie and revolutionary (think protest signs, album covers of the 60’s and 70’s);

Hand drawn:

Digital:

Videos

Type History
Context link

OUGD501 - Seminar 2: Consumerism - Persuasion, Society, Brand & Culture

• Desire - false need for commodities - satisfaction, inequality - inequality disguised by the illusion of freedom
• False needs vs real needs
• Greed
• Caused by mass production in advertising and branding
• Freud - Irrational desires and animal instincts - 'pleasure principle'
• Bernays - brought the concepts together through PR
• This caused social control vs Freedom (inequality) - palliative

After discussing the above, we were put into groups of five and given sections each from chapter 7 of John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing', and were given the task to discuss these pages and get the key points of each page. Showing how it links to consumerism and find adverts where we can see this working.

Pg 131 - 135

• Publicity can't linked too strongly to the product - it needs to be seen as something that will add gain to the consumers life. Adverts can't be too far away from their grasp, but not too easy. Must be something desired.
• Publicity is based on the selfish desires of people's envy
• People work to make others envious of their possessions - advertisements play on this - gives the illusion that the product will give happiness - false sense of happiness
• Envied people have power and control over others
• By buying a product you are hoping to see yourself as the object of envy
• Oil paintings were a way of seeing affluence and so you can envy others - Berger compares this to modern advertising.

Task: Write an analysis of one advert using quotes from Berger to back up how the advert reflects the physical and mental condition of consumerism. (Approx 500 words)

This iPad advert focusses purely on the product itself which makes it an interesting advert to look at in relation to consumerism. At first glance, it seems to be a relatively straight forward advert, showing exactly what the product can do, how easily it works and how quickly things can get done on it. This doesn’t initially seem like it plays on the desires of the spectator-buyer, however when it comes to technology, envy has always been on the person with the newest, fastest and most advanced piece of software.

Referring to what Berger says; ‘The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life. Not with the way of life of society, but with his own within it. It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better. It offers him an improved alternative to what he is.’ (Berger, 1972, p142), this advert completely goes by this. It shows a piece of software which can do multiple tasks, very quickly and literally at the touch of a finger. It shows a piece of technology in a simple format which is easy to use and quick to learn, with no other attachments. It relates itself entirely to a humans desire for simplicity and a fast, working piece of technology which can hold a large amount of information, and is portable.

It shows how easy one’s life could be with the product, and how there is much less time wasted having to go on a different array of technologies to do different tasks. ‘Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable’ (Berger, 1972, p131). The advert shows an array of different people each using the product, all doing a different thing each to show the diversity of the product and how it can completely transform your life into something easy to manage and keep control of at all times. Making one’s life easier to manage gives the illusion that it will be a happier and simpler one, with this product playing a large part in this happiness and pleasure of having this idealogical life. ‘Publicity begins by work on a natural appetite for pleasure. But it cannot offer the real object of pleasure and there is no convincing substitute for pleasure in that pleasure’s own terms’ (Berger, 1972, p132).

It works on the illusion that this product will give that happiness, and that without it, life will be the same old life it is, with no improvement. The spectator-buyer imagines themselves with the product and what it could do to increase the ease and happiness in their life, becoming envious of the potential future-self, and seeing how having this product, and being that person in the advert will make others around envious of what they have. ‘The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself’ (Berger, 1972, p134). It is a very sly and hidden message it gives, but it does entice the spectators natural need for improvement to life.

OUGD501 - Lecture 1: Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand & Culture

Aims:

• Analyse the rise of US consumerism
• Discuss the links between consumerism and our unconscious desires
• Sigmund Freud
• Edmund Bernays
• Consumerism as social control

• Century of self - Adam Curtis (Film)
• No Logo - Naomi Klein (Book)

Freud (1856 - 1939)

• New Theory on human nature
• Psychoanalysis
• Hidden primitive sexual forces & animal instincts which need controlling
• The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
• The Unconscious (1915)
• The Ego & ID (1923)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle
• Civilisation & Discontent (1930)

• Freud says most actions are driven by hidden 'ID' (Primitive desires) we don't access them consciously but they do cause most decisions
• Fundamental tension between civilisation & the individual
• Human instincts incompatible with the well being of community
• The pleasure principle
• WW1 was the testament to his theories

Edmund Bernays (1891 - 1995)

• Press agent
• Employed by public information during WW1
• Post war - set up 'The Council on Public Relations)
• Birth of PR
• Based on the ideas of Freud (His uncle)
• His idea is that any kind of business can be successful if they relate the product to the subconscious desires
• Psychological techniques to link these products to desire
• Was employed by tobacco company to get women to smoke - was a taboo for women to smoke at the time - organised for women to smoke at the same  time on a parade - tipped press off saying these women were suffragettes/feminists & that smoking was their symbol of freedom/power
• Product placement & celebrity endorsements
• The use of pseudo-scientific reports
• System of mass marketing & cross marketing basing on the idea that it gives satisfaction
• Things are bought under the illusion that it will satisfy people

Fordism

• Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)
• Transposes Taylorism to car manufacturing
• Moving assembly line
• Standard production models built as they move through the factory
• Request large investments
• Based on modern consumerism is giving USP's to products - marketing products as if they are more special than others
• Bernays applied this to business

• Culture starts to shift to a society based on desire and not what is needed

Marketing hidden needs:

• Selling emotional security
• Selling reassurance of worth
• Selling ego-gratification
• Selling creative outlets
• Selling love objects
• Selling sense of power
• Selling of immortality
• Selling a sense of roots

• People just given the illusion that they are happy
• A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd
• 'Manufacturing Consent' - governmental propaganda

• Russian Revolution 1917 - poor overthrew the rich - communism
• America saw this as a threat to capitalism

• Walter Lippman started to consult government in how to keep people happy using Bernay's principles

• Oct 24th 1929 - Black Tuesday - American economy fell - the great depression

• Roosevelt and the 'new deal' 1933-36 - promise to introduce benefits, pensions, job creation, investments etc
• Big businesses were in uproar - government wanted to limit their control/profits
• The world's fair New York 1940 - giant exhibition for all which is good about the American Culture - essentially a propaganda for big businesses - 'Democracity' - could be free as long as you buy the big businesses products

Conclusion

• We are free but how free?
• Society is based on the illusion of freedom
• Consumerism is an idealogical project - belief that desire can be met through consumption and consumerism
• Conflicts between alternative modes of social organisation happens to this day

OUGD504 - Design For Web Introduction Seminar

History

• Created in 1991 at CERN in Geneva
• Created by Tim Burners Lee, a British scientist - originally to send notes between the work stations in CERN
• 1992 - world's first server built by Steve Jobs, a NeXT computer
• First image put on - all-female pop group founded by CERN - was a PNG image

Terminology

• HTTP - Hyper text transfer protocol
• URL - Uniform resource locator
• HTML - hyper text markup language
• CSS - cascading style sheet
• FTP - File transfer protocol
• CMS - Content management system
• Skewmorphism - derivative that retains ornamental design from structures that were necessary in the original - e.g. buttons looking like metal - a bookshelf holding books in iBooks for iPad/iPhone
• Responsive - could be called reactive design. It is responsive because the design responds i.e. can be adapted to a variety of media using different screen sizes

Design

• You can apply a grid to any website
• What is the point?
• What is the purpose?
• Who are the target audience?
• What do the target audience need?

Initial thoughts:

Apple - Clean, simple, fun, colourful

Leeds College of Art - Corporate, boring, plain, thin

BBC - Organised, plain, simple

My Own Bike - Minimalist, curious, simple

Slavery Footprint - Confusing, colourful

Lings Cars - Cheap, ugly, cluttered

No Limits Arcades - Overload, overbearing, terrible

Evangel Cathedral - American, tacky, laughable

Legwork Studio - minimal, plain, confusing

Task - Go onto some websites and note down your initial reaction. Was this reaction intended by the designer? Does it fulfil the questions asked when designing a website?

Amazon

Initial reaction: Simple, easy to navigate, boring

As Amazon is a mass retail website, the designer probably wanted it to be very easy to see where everything is and easy to get around, with large, high quality images and easy navigation bars. It does answer the design questions because it is designed specifically for it's purpose. It isn't exactly the best looking website, but it does fulfil the brief.