Design Notes - Create a Compliant Gallery
Jul 27th, 07 | 3 remarksIf you’ve ever needed a solution for displaying multiple images for something - be it a product demo, or a set of photos you took for a client (or your own portfolio) - you may have struggled to find one that fits with your ideals as a designer, or with the requirements set forth by your client.
Jonathan Schemoul of JonDesign has created a slideshow system which might provide the solution you need. With Smooth Gallery you can display photos with semantic, search engine friendly captions, and with standards compliant usability. It’s a great alternative to a Flash-based system (for obvious reasons).
It’s reasonably easy to set up, includes unobtrusive navigational controls, handy options like auto-resizing thumbnails, and can itself be easily resized within your CSS. It even had different gallery/slideshow options. Who could ask for anything more? ;) Oh and yes, it’s free.
Destinations ~
Trinity United Methodist Church of Birmingham gets the Destination kudos this week. Using warm and inviting colors, and a strong focus on the people (nearly every demographic that can exist within a congregation has its own section tucked neatly away in the navigation), the UMC design serves its purpose well.
Pertinent information (like events and worship times) is displayed prominently, and while you’ll notice touches of 2.0 design, the choice in textured backgrounds lends to a classic look as well. Nicely done.
That’s a great little script, thanks for sharing. Now, I wonder how difficult it would be to incorporate that as a WordPress plugin with options to select specific folders within hosting to provide a slideshow… Goes to think about it for a bit.
Jul 27, 07 | 4:16 pmThat’s a great idea actually. Sometimes I wish I more developer-minded, so I could create plugins and such, then possibly capitalize on that ability. :) But alas I have to rely on those who can. If you’re of the mind to give it a shot, let me know what you come up with! I’ll update the entry to include it.
Jul 27, 07 | 6:01 pmThat’s a great church page. It makes me think of redoing our church site (of which I am the amateur webmaster) in warmer colors. Thanks for posting it.
Jul 29, 07 | 10:19 pm