Jim Regan - Site Reviews
Solemates: The Century in Shoes
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When The Marketing Store, of Sacramento, California, decided to make this point, they gave themselves a somewhat larger challenge and chose a subject without any such instant attraction. Of course, this demonstrated the point all the more effectively -- especially when the subject with which The Marketing Store set itself the task of enticing and entrancing us was, well...shoes.
Solemates: The Century in Shoes starts off by helpfully perusing your browser and informing you of any potential obstacles to your full enjoyment of the presentation. A 4+ browser is recommended, although I tested the site in Navigator 3 without any unpleasant surprises.
A list of other 'required' plug-ins, and links to their sites is also provided, as well as a link into the site, should the visitor wish to press on without upgrading. The only problem with this display is that none of it appears if you happen to have JavaScript turned off, (something many of us do to avoid those maddening Geocities-style ad windows while we surf). Nor was it replaced with a "You need JavaScript" notice, as is done at many similar sites -- leaving surfers who might be unfamiliar with the reason for a blank homepage likely to simply move on to a more rewarding destination.
Assuming that you have all the requirements installed and active, Solemates greets its visitors with a Flash-animated introduction which carries on to the index page. Here, the site displays an increasingly rare virtue in Web design -- pages that actually fit a small screen browser. This asset is present throughout the site, and you won't have to engage in a single exercise of zig-zag scrolling during the visit.
After a short text introduction -- aimed to plant a few seeds of doubt in your conviction that shoes are boring -- Solemates then offers its contents in a decade-by-decade format.
Choose a decade from the 'thematically appropriate' clock face, and Solemates presents a period quote, ("I never put on a pair of shoes until I've worn them at least five years." Samuel Goldwyn) and a quick intro -- which carries into a second page -- exploring the historic and fashion influences on the feet of the time. The front page of each decade also includes a half dozen photographic examples of fashionable footwear, each of which opens into a separate window and allows the visitor to examine the artifact in close detail or rotate it via QTVR.
Other 'extra window' features include Scenes from the Decade (high and low resolution QuickTime movies) and print Advertisements from the Decade (which, unfortunately, do not have high resolution versions).
After working one's way back to the 90's, Solemates also offers a few feature articles, including Dangerous Shoes, and its analysis of some people's love/hate struggle with their footwear:
"You convince yourself that without those shoes your life will be an empty routine of car pools, bus transfers, project reports, and macaroni and cheese dinners with just you and your regular dining companion, Alex Trebek! You break out the plastic and sign your name...Three days later when the euphoria lifts you realize, 'And to what board meeting am I going to wear a pair of candy-apple red, 8-inch platform, spike-heeled, ankle strap pumps with three buckles?'"
Finally, Before This Century provides a point-form timeline of the Evolution Of The Shoe, from the oldest existing footwear (8000 BC) through the shoelace fad of the 1600's, to the rise of the buttonhook near the turn of the last century.
Believe it or not, one doesn't have to be Imelda Marcos to find this site interesting, and much of the credit goes (as the creators had set out to demonstrate) to the effective and intelligent use of the Web to present the information. Of course, taken to its extreme, the knowledge that the way you package your message can be more important that the fact that you have nothing to say, could be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.
We can only pray that advertisers and politicians never learn this terrible secret.
Solemates: The Century in Shoes can be found at http://www.centuryinshoes.com/
Jim Regan provides 'Today's Links' to the e-Monitor. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.