Sunday, December 03, 2006

Arts Index Design Commission


The Arts Index online artists database for Poole, Bournemouth and Dorset has been online for 2 years and features over 550 local artists, musicians, creative industries, and groups: www.artsindex.org .
It is regularly used by a partnership of arts officers and agencies to recruit and signpost artists for projects, exhibitions, events and performances; and by artists to showcase their work and find out the latest arts opportunities, events and announcements in the region and beyond. Although the site functions well, it is in need of being visually updated to reflect the wealth of contemporary creative talent featured on it.


COMMISSION BRIEF
The Arts Development Unit for the Borough of Poole on behalf of the Arts Index partnership, is inviting proposals from artists who are featured on the database, to update and redesign the website for 2007.
This is an exciting opportunity for members of the Arts Index to take some ownership of the site and work with web programmer and design professionals to help develop the site into a thriving contemporary artists showcase, resource and networking space for Dorset.
This development opportunity is in response to a period of consultation with artists and users of the site. The selected artist will be teamed up with a designer and web programmer to help realise their ideas, so no web design experience is necessary.

THE BIGGER PICTURE
The site will also be going through some other developments at this time, and the selected artist will be central to deciding the final 'look' for these changes supported by the web programmer and consultant designer.
These developments will be:
· Artist commissioned to redesign the site · A new introduction page for partner organisations, featuring each organisation's logo, 100 words about them and a link to their web site.
· The announcements + events sections to be made available to general public · Venues section: To be available to anyone accessing the site · Groups section : To be available to anyone accessing the site · Artists to be able to opt in/out for having their names and art-form, practice description and images of work accessible by all visitors to the site (personal details kept confidential) - only with artists consent
· Facility to send attachments to artists through the 'email all artists' function (site administrator to access this only, to prevent spread of virus' and spam)
· Email all partners facility (for artists and partners to access)

PROPOSALS MUST INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
1. Proposals for new colour schemes / layout / new logo / fonts / accessibility 2. Artists CV
Some tips from the Web Programmer: · make sure the design isn't wider than approximately 980 pixels (to fit within a 1024 screen, including scroll bars) · try not to make the design too graphically rich as images take a long time to download (even on broadband) · include a navigation bar (typically this would be horizontally along the top or vertically on the left-hand-side) · try to use web-safe and accessible fonts (i.e. such as Times, Arial, Verdana etc.) for any blocks of text · Please note that the selected design idea may need to be 'tweaked' for it to work on the internet.

COMMISSION FEE
An inclusive fee of £300 will be paid to the selected artist for their ideas and time with the web specialists.

DEADLINE
The deadline for proposals is midday Monday 11th December 2006. Please send you proposals either by post or email to:
Marianne Scahill Arts in the Community Officer Borough of Poole 4 High Street Poole BH15 1BW
m.Scahill@poole.gov.uk
For more information call Marianne on 01202 633972
Marianne Scahill Arts in the Community Officer Borough of Poole, Waterfront Museum, 4 High Street, Poole, Dorset, BH15 1BW
t: 01202 633972 m: 07779 880378
WOW @ The Study Gallery, North Rd, Poole - an exciting programme of healthy and creative activites on Wednesdays - open to all! see: www.thestudygallery.org

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