Jim Regan -- Site Reviews
Martin Luther King: Living Memory
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Today, though it's possible to record images in color, in motion, and even in three dimensions, there are still times when the best-looking photo is a standard black-and-white photograph. In the same way, when it's possible for Web sites to do everything short of slapping you in the face to get your attention (no doubt someone's working on that), many designers forget that for certain subjects, a simple presentation is often the best use of the medium. Kodak's Martin Luther King: Living Memory effectively illustrates both of these points.
The April edition of Kodak.com's monthly online features, Living Memory uses photographs taken during the last year of Dr. King's life by civil rights photographer Benedict J. Fernandez to create an online book of remembrance. A high compliment: Living Memory quickly secured my full attention despite the fact that (due to various assignments occupying my consciousness at the time) I was surfing distractedly and spending as much time looking away from the computer screen as toward it. A further compliment is the fact that the site got my attention, not by flashing icons or intrusive sound effects, but a with few quiet notes on a piano.
As I turned back to the screen, the all-black browser window "faded" into a portrait of King, and then to a white space, where the feature's title appeared. Quiet, simple, and very effective. The Web could use more of this. (Especially when so many Web site intros have become nothing more than online endurance tests, "rewarding" that surfer with definitive examples of, "... sound and fury, signifying nothing." But I rant. Take a look at SkipIntro.com for a tragically accurate parody of the phenomenon.)
Clicking on the intro page (or leaving it alone for a sufficient period) loads the first of 12 content pages in the exhibition. As with all the others, this first page is topped by a quote from King and a photograph by Mr. Fernandez. The images range from appearances in civil rights marches and at the United Nations, to the Atlanta funeral, and an image of wreaths placed on the infamous motel balcony. Immediately below each photograph is Fernandez's recollection of the specific event, with a link to an accompanying full-length essay in remembrance of his subject. Some pages also contain thoughts submitted by visitors to the site, sharing an occasion on which they met the Dr., or the impact his life has made on their own. Further submissions are encouraged, and will be added to the site.
Thanks to Flash, and "liquid" page layout (which allows the page to adjust to the size of the monitor you use), the site is commendably adaptable to various browser sizes. The opening animation will accommodate any window's dimensions (if you don't have Flash installed, the opening animation is substituted with a simple title card), and the exhibit pages, while unable to resize their photographs, can reflow text so that the only scrolling necessary will be of the vertical variety. (The index bar, in a separate frame, is completely inflexible, but squeezes comfortably into a 640x480 browser.)
The photographs are high quality and, other than some banding in shadow areas, are better "developed" than most for online viewing. As for additional features on the site: There are none. No special effects, no cutting edge design, no surprises – as it should be, when a Web site's purpose is to elicit reflection, rather than amazement.
Martin Luther King: Living Memory can be found at http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/martinLuther/.
Jim Regan provides 'Today's Links' to the e--Monitor. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.