NOTE: Version 2 contains a darker version of the background, set at 800px wide. This version is set at 1024px wide.
The Hand of God is designed to serve, ultimately, as the online location for dissertation research by Rwany Sibaja at George Mason University. This design page reflects choices a fledgling digital historian grapples with, in an attempt to produce an aesthetically pleasing site that meshes with the historical time period at hand. The rest of the site, located in the navigation bar, contains the preliminary site design.
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Typography: The 1970s produces bad font choices. So, the task here is to capture the decade and thematic elemnts of my research, without choosing a font that belittles either one. For the Hand of God site logo, in the header section, I liked the distressed/grunge font Birth of a Hero from the website dafont.com; the splattering effect helped convey the violence of the Argentinian “Dirty War”. For the majority of the site, futura is a timeless classic with an modern feel to it (arial and helvetica finish the sans-serif font family); quotations are in arial narrow.
For subheadings on the typography assignment, a free font known as Millenium, by Maniackers, provided a 70s font-style that reflected the logo of the 1978 world cup, as well as the numbering on many soccer jerseys of the time.
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Color: Initially, I tinkered with the idea of a red and gray color scheme that would accentuate the violence of the time period; but, the red proved to be a bit stress-inducing.
Instead, I settled on a risky choice: muted blues and grays; the choice of these colors were designed to reflect the focus on national and cultural identity.
The header and the footer would mirror the sky-blue top and bottom of the Argentinian flag, and the main content section would serve as the middle white stripe of the flag. Then (to avoid an overwhelming patriotic feel to the site) I began experimenting with shades of blue and white that offered softer tones. The result is a color scheme that still reflects the national identity-aspect of the site, but with an industrial feel that reflects the sobering topic of violent repression.
Finally, the gold of the world cup trophy served as the basis for the choice of yellow as a secondary color-indicative of sporting triumph in1978 and 1986, as well as the sun at the center of the flag. I settled on a darker yellow with a slight touch of olive green to it. For dramatic effect, wine red (at an opacity of 20 percent) is used as warm contrast in the header banner (to the cool predominant colors of the site) as a nod to bloodshed and military aggression.
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Illustrations: The motif behind the background image is the design of the 1978 world cup ball: the tango. Previous soccer balls used the hexagonal/pentgonal design many people still envision when they think of a soccer ball. The Tango broke the mold and the distressed background image is a nod to soccer aficionados visiting the site. UPDATE: based on classroom feedback, the "Tango" motif used in the site's background contains a tone of blue that matches the header and footer, as well as a reduced size that created a more solid appearance. Layout: The overall layout of the site is a one-column fixed style. The horizontal menu works well with the layout and the motif of the Argentinian flag. Aligning the text is still a work in progress.
The header contains an array of images created with Adobe Photoshop. The ball on the left side relates to the idea of soccer as a representation of national identity; the bloodstained hand connects to the victims of genocide; a soft-white barbed wire a discreet reminder of the detention centers the government attempted to hide from outside observers; fighter jets symbolize the military rule and Falkland/Malvinas war; and the ray of sunshine is a 70s Photoshop brush that fit well with the idea of hopeful optimism through national sports heroes. The altered image of Diego Maradona scoring his (in)famous goal with his hand is used on the mainpage only.
To add texture to the site, a soft gray edge blends the off-white main content area with the background. A distressed effect is applied to the background and to the edges of the footer and header areas (thanks Cameron Moll!) I also added the sun of the Argentinian flag at a reduced opacity, low contrast, and muted tones-all using Photoshop.
