Project Role

I am the Web Designer for the Materials and their Makers groups. My role is to develop the aesthetic experience of our group’s webpages. My goal is to make the design as simple as possible, in keeping with the larger group goal of maintaining a user-friendly interface. I will be making stylistic choices, in collaboration with the group, about things like color, font, background, etc. for our webpages. My goal is to help make webpages which are just as beautiful as they are functional, much like the various objects we will be presenting on them.

Individual Focus Statement

I will create a webpage to present the Riesener writing desk from the Tessé Room. My aim is to help users understand both the skeleton and the veneer of the desk, by comparing hi-res images and three-dimensional models to plates from Diderot’s Encyclopédie. I want to demonstrate what qualities of this desk are both unique to it and quintessential of the writing desk genre of furniture-making, as well as furniture-making in general (things like gilt bronze and wood inlay). I will examine the desk as a gendered item, and consider how it performs spatially and conceptually when it is being used by a woman.