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I began my design of the page with trying to understand the concept
of anagrams and what would be an expression of anagrams from the world
of art, where abstractions can be made visible. It seemed to me most
important that this site is given life in the form of visuality added to
the actual anagram generator. From here came my first significant
modification to the original site - the addition of M.C.Escher's two
graphics: "Dragon" and "Dewdrop". The two pictures express a concept of
relativity and life beyond the actual "normal" visual world. Esher is
used here as an artist who is most adequate to the philosophy of
anagrams as it is outlined in the contents of the page which I added as
central in the next modification. I would mention here that I had in
mind Esher, Godel and Bach when I was seeking for the images to use with
the Anagrams' Site.
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Second in importance is the change of the actual contents of the home
page of the site. It seemed essential to explain why am I taking the
time of a visitor with a site on anagrams? Whay are they so interesting
and what is it about them that is so much fun? I found that I need to
write this anew as the primary site did not touch upon the topic and had
no links to anything similar.
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The third change naturally was related to the general layout of the
page which had to be changed to reflect the two conceptual additions in
graphical expression and philosophy underlying anagrams, While leaving
the title image and the anagram generator on top as is with the
original. all remaining elements were rearranged in a table for clarity
and control over the layout, design and visibility of the new page. The
title I kept as it was as the graphic was a good example of what
anagrams are and the animation gave life to the whole. The anagram
generator is a central tool for the sake of which the page was
originally created and I left it at the very top of the page just below
the title. I used the "Dragon" for a left margin and positioned the
links in a margin at the right, dividing the links in chunks by
"Dewdrop" for better visibility and comprehension. "Dewdrop" is
positioned at the right to set balance to the "Dragon" at the left.
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The next in significance change concerns the using of CSS to unify
the feel and the look of the site. Titles, fonts, text and links - all
follow the principle of consistency and unify the perception of the
whole.
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Further, the original links of the primary site were moved to the
margin on the right. I preserved all original links as essential to the
layout of the primary page, moreover that they contained important
information. Transferring the links from the top and from the bottom to
the right and chunking them was done for opening up the space on top of
the page for the title and for the generator, and at the bottom for
information pertaining to the 5W principle.
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I created links to my own homepage, to the Database of OpenContent,
to the home of the primary site and to my own e-mail for comments and
positioned them below the "Dragon" as links of a different category than
the ones at the right(the primary links) and the links at the bottom
(the 5W links). In addition this division is better for the eye and the
mind (chunking again).
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I chose to leave the page in subdued shades between black, grey,
white and grey-blue. The play of black to white emphasizes and mirrors
the nature of the anagrams themselves. For me it is a good way to
express relativity and the flip-side of anagrams, or their topcy-turvy
nature and reversibility. The anagram worl is a world of shifting sands
and black-white play best reflects this.
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The choice of the only colour spot on the page is in the icon of my
home site. This is a deliberately miniature image and glows with
changing colours to contrast the connotations of the rest. When
boundaries shift and the order is threatened by chaos the fire-glow in a
space of utter familiarity, the "back-stage" of "home" where order is so
familiar that is taken-for-granted.
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Adding two small animated icons at the bottom of the page meant to
balance off the animated graphic on the top and emphasize the life of
the site.
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Finally I left one piece of information from the primary site
pertaining to browser support of frames and added at the bottom below
that the name of the designer of the primary site, my own name and the
date the site was last updated. This helps the visitor of the page not
lose track of what is going on on this site: this was done to follow the
5W-principle.