Formerly Art Partitions, LYNNEL Art to Form is striving to revise and expand the ways in which original artwork can be used in commercial and residential settings.  Their process employs digital technology to enhance and transfer artistic compositions to glass, acrylic, fabric, metal, and wall coverings for use in a wide range of environments.

In the original meetings to discuss the design and interface that would become the site, words like “architectural” and “minimal” were used very often, but in the context of separate disciplines. The website had to function as something of a unique entity, given that LYNNEL Art to Form crosses several bridges between the fine art world and the realm of architectural design and interiors. Should the site function like a portfolio of an artist, with pure imagery and an emphasis on the singularity of each piece? Or should it look like a site fashioned for prospective clients, often architects and interior designers, who are shopping for commercial design and fabrication services? The answer was it had to be both. LYNNEL Art to Form is a unique hybrid of both worlds, manifested by the collaborations of a hands-on artist and a Wacom-wielding designer, and completed by an engineering/business savant that turns abstract ideas into concrete reality. The resulting site design is deceivingly simple; it is an architectural-feeling layout with minimal text that emphasizes the company’s unique identity and showcases on a large scale the organic and abstract original artworks, both in it’s intellectual form and as a physical installation.

The final website is a smashing success, and even has an unintentional albeit very fitting meditative quality to it. The clean layout and ethereal art images presented with tasteful fading transitions (achieved with the fine Flash techniques of Mr. Steve) are curiously mood altering. Enjoy the experience!

view project : : lynnel.com

Jayson Marrs and Jetmir Zymeri, owners of the chic Denver LoDo lounge The Lure, approached me (Benny Yarnell) about designing a website that would capture the feel, the atmosphere… if not the very ethos of their establishment. Crucial details that defined their space involved ground breaking lighting technology, furnishings custom-constructed of colorado-specific materials and textiles, and the aim for a specific sense of fashion, attitude, and lifestyle. The space is distinctly long and narrow, and most of the action takes place along one wall running the length of the building. Being a regular patron along with mutual friends of Jayson and Jetmir, I was very familiar with the aforementioned fashion, attitude and lifestyle the guys were targeting. I felt I was the right guy for the job, but capturing all those details in a compelling site that would rock Denver’s nightlife scene is a tall order, no matter how you look at it.

The idea to create a faux-3D interactive site that essentially recreates the space virtually using only 2D photographs came to me out of the blue at about 2:00AM. It seemed obvious to perhaps photograph all the interior details of the space with creative angles, throw in a few shots of the typical Lure crowd, and create a nice little flash movie atop a minimal, basic layout… but having just completed the Littleton Cyclery site, which uses a similar faux-3D interactive concept, and realizing the long, narrowness of the space… well, I had somewhat of an epiphany, and my mind was set.

I thought of the site like a widescreen movie, with a side-sweep tracking shot. But to achieve this effect with still photography, and to extract the layers of people and chairs and other elements that create the 3D effect, I essentially had to do three separate photoshoots. The main shoot of the bar interior was the most challenging, and the final photo you see in the site is actually a comp of approximately 40 photos; I did long exposures of the interior on a tripod and repeated this over and over again, taking one step sideways with the camera per shot. This was necessary as the space was too narrow for me to get enough distance from the wall, and being that close to the subject means the lens will create a fishbowl effect. Only a very narrow strip of each photo, which had the least distortion, was usable.

The second shoot was to retrace my steps, but to populate the scene with people and chairs. The third shoot was actually shot in a studio, where I had additional models to fill in spots that seemed too vacant in the previous shoots. The subsequent photoshop sessions were brutal, and there was much digital painting and manipulating to extract layers for depth. But with a hefty .psd file ready for Flash, Steve took the reigns and made the whole grand concept and all of it’s maddening parts sing in harmony.

view project : : the lure lounge

How does one take roughly 30 different stock photos, a few original photos, and a specific communicative theme and make them all work harmoniously to manifest a singular, uniform scene? The short answer is lots of digital painting, lot’s of isolating, lots of levels, and lots and lots of layers. The long answer, however, has more to do with principles of classic art composition and some background in visual storytelling techniques. Let’s dissect a little and dive in.

Scrolling from left to right, observe the overall feel and color scheme. On the extreme left, we see mountain bikers in a rugged, dry setting with dirt-trail colors and tones. Scrolling right, the scene progressively becomes green and blue, and very lush, crisp and clean. Perhaps this was inspired by my experiences on the saddle of both cycling disciplines. Even merely analyzing the tire of my mountain bike, my instinct was to imagine red clay and rough terrain, as mimicked by the rugged plateaus and steep angles of the appropriately outfitted tire. On the road bike, the tire is clean and streamlined. This is not only in the sense of the tire being smooth and narrow, it also has a sense of being a far more expansive and fluent ellipse. Such features remind me of the fluid curves of a winding paved road and the sleek appearance of a landscape filled with pointed greenery. This overall transition in color palette is also a transition in tactile response and in mood. On a side note, I’d like to point out that I have ridden my mountain bike on clean pavement surrounded by greenery many times. But whenever I have, I always felt a little out of place. And I’ve ridden a road bike on mountain trails… but that was called Cyclocross, and that is just all-around crazy on too many levels. Never mind feeling out of place there. That’s the whole idea of the sport.

Having established a visual story, some key elements were needed to identify the primary topics of the site. Click on the mountain bikers and you are directed to the mountain biking section of the site. Click on the information sign and you are directed to information about Littleton Cyclery. Click on the attractive woman wearing noticeable gear in the foreground and you are in the gear and accessories section. the concept applies to all clickable objects. It appears at a glance that these objects all tie in to the scene rather seamlessly, but each of thee objects come from very different source materials. Different photographers, different lighting, different colors, even different grain patterns. To get everything to sing one song, some real Photoshop finesse is needed. This is where a background in classical art technique becomes necessary. The single most unifying features of each object in the cohesive whole is the contrast, saturation, and grain pattern. The overall scene is rather rich in color. Shading has a short gamut, with the darkest shading being a strong, abrupt black. This is all the result of modifying and exaggerating the values of each object to the point where they all appear to have similar shading and contrast. It is not photo-real, but it ties everything together. The final touch is to run each and every graphic component through a very minor grain filter. The intensity of the grain should be as minimal as possible, but done to the point where everything is consistent.

There are many more steps and calculations involved in creating a complex, faux-3D interface like this. But the key factors are the same as with any compelling image. A still image should create movement with it’s composition. And a composition should be defined by the story it wishes to tell. From conceptualization to Photoshop to Flash implementation, those principles were the guiding authority on every decision.

view project : : Littleton Cyclery Version 01

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