Interactive Media

1. http://spyrestudios.com/50-stunning-portfolio-website-designs/
This website was helpful because it showcases many different people's website templates and various styles used to create something attractive, yet presentable. They are creative in theme and placement and are unique from the mundane types of websites you see everyday.

2. www.blogger.com
This website is helpful because if you use it to create a website you can get a feel of how it could look in different ways. It also lets you add html, although does most of it for you. It has lots of options for adding video, pictures, other interactive features, and changeable theme's and fonts. You can also add pages and get a feel for the idea of making your own website from scratch. It works as a good practice tool.

3. http://webtemplatebiz.com/
This website allows you to look up different types of templates based on the style or what information you need to revolve around. You can get an idea of what direction you want to go with your own website based on how the themes/templates relate to the type of artist or work the artist does.

4.http://www.w3.org/
This website, not very 'artsy' is still a useful tool based on its layout. The navigation on top and the side of the screen allows you to have a visual of how they work on a filled in webpage, which helps you figure out where you most prefer to place your navigation bar(s). It also has drop down menu's, subtopics, outside links, and graphics placed around the border of the page. Through these aspects I can think about my own website and where I would prefer to place any links/menu's and how I want my picture's to be. Looking at this site already lets me know that I'd prefer to keep my navigation in one area and that I'm not a fan of the drop shadow under the banner. It also makes me want to integrate words and pictures in a way that doesn't seem random, but doesn't read like a dictionary, like this site.

5. www.photobucket.com
I use this website without really looking at it, but when I did it helped me decide on how my site should look. It allowed me to note that having information above the banner doesn't look good in my opinion. The slideshow banner on the top of the page was helpful because while trying to lay out how I'd fit my work on the website I was trying to create this idea, but couldn't bring of the slideshow concept up in my mind. Once I visually saw a slideshow I was able to lay out what I was attempting to in the first place.