Steve Keene is a New York area artist who paints hundreds of identical works everyday, and sells them for next to nothing online and from his studio. Why don't we take a look at his website?
Intended Audience: This one is interesting, because I can't just say "people interested in art." Since Steve Keene sells almost everything he paints, and is insanely prolific, he often gets dismissed by serious art buffs. I first discovered him through his work on album covers for Pavement and The Apples in Stereo, and a lot of his work is focused on music and musicians. So, audience? Maybe people interested in outsider art, and college students looking for a cheap way to decorate their walls.
Usefulness of Content: Pretty useful! There are directions to Steve's studio in Brooklyn, a short biography of the artist, and a page with links to articles written about Keene over the years. There is also, of course, and image gallery- which is actually quite short. Dissapointingly so! There is also an online storefront where you can buy Steve's work, which I'll dicuss in detail later on.
Consistency of Design: It's a well made and simple site. There is a cool flash animation on the first page that shows Steve's assembly line techniques in use. After that, all the pages use black text on a grey background. If there is blue text, it's always a link, which makes things simple. The navigation cluster at the bottom of the page is done in all different colors and Steve's handwriting style, but it's still pretty intuitive.
Ease of Use: This section will focus on the sites online store, which has some issues- some of which were intentional on the part of the artist. Since Steve paints so much, he doesn't put up each item on his site with a picture and price: as stated, his prices are $10 for a small painting, $14 for a large. That's through paypal, and picked at random by Steve and his staff. Plus $8 for shipping!
What the site doesn't mention (and they really should!) is that paying 10 or 14 bucks actually gets you 3 or 4 paintings, of various shape and size. The system itself isn't nearly as rigid as the site would suggest, and what actually takes place is a much better deal. Why not explain on the site?
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