A Thought on Simple Websites

Monday May 3rd, 2010

Scott Suchman is one of our Washington, DC photographers and recently visited Wonderful Machine HQ for a tour and lunch. In reviewing Scott’s website before his visit, I was reminded of how refreshing it is to see a simple-to-use site like his, especially after viewing so many hundreds (thousands?) of websites that have confusing navigation and loading issues. Not this one:

I also think that most art buyers/creatives have less patience than me when flipping through images, so I’d keep that in mind if you’re a photographer considering the design of your own site. From my perspective, here are the things that I like about Scott’s site:

1) His images load quickly.

2) The navigation arrows are in the same place for each image, and I don’t have to re-orient my mouse each time:

3) The images are just large enough to get an idea of what he’s doing. Some people like them full-screen, but these give you plenty of info to be confident in the quality of his work.

4) You can link to the specific pages, if you want to share a good image with colleagues or clients. This URL links to the following image, and not just his homepage like some Flash sites:

5) And there’s not an overflow of navigational options:

Simple!

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A little more about Scott:

• Full disclosure: Scott did bring delicious cupcakes for us from Georgetown Cupcakes on his visit, but that in no way influenced this post.

• He’s found that, in recent years, NYC clients are hiring him more frequently rather than sending New York photographers down to DC and paying travel fees.

• He’s a foodie (no surprise) who loves to cook and travel. Good thing that’s what he shoots, too.

• He particularly enjoys shooting food culture, and following the story from farm to table. A few more examples from that:

-Neil Binklely