Grapefruit Moon Gallery -- found at GrapefruitMoonGallery.com -- is an online gallery specialising in original Pin-up, Glamour, Advertising, and Cover Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration. Featuring original paintings by Earl Moran, Rolf Armstrong, Arthur Spear, and Henry Clive among others, this collection is being offered for sale for the first time, exclusively via the website.
Assembled over a period of 20 years by Daniel D. Murphy while touring as a member of the rock group Soul Asylum, the gallery includes the largest known collection of paintings by renowned illustrator Henry Clive, and a legendary pastel by Earl Moran of a young pin-up model soon to be known around the world as "Marilyn Monroe"!
Above: Homepage of the Grapefruit Moon Gallery. The smaller thumbnails are generated automatically by the content management system.
Two of the most important contributions that designers hope for from their clients in the web design process are a clear starting point for the style of the site design, and a good selection of source images relating to the subject matter of the site.
Above: Deco-style mouseover on the main site navigation.
These two areas were smooth sailing with the Grapefruit Moon Gallery site. The design evokes the Art Deco style that characterises much of this era of American art and the page layout was implemented as an 'art catalog'-style frame around the rich variety of images that the gallery contains.
The woman and moon gallery logo was developed from an original painting by Henry Clive, circa 1910-1920, and fonts, navigation elements, and border shapes used in the site evoke the sensibilities of the era.
The mouseover state (right) on the main navigation titles uses a Deco underline rather than a standard color change most commonly found on websites.
Above: Screenshot showing a catalog page with Earl Moran's "The Spanish Girl", an early illustration of Marilyn Monroe. On the right, the E-mail This Page window for the site.
The Golden Gallery
Above: Navigation detail, showing graphic on pieces in "The Golden Gallery". Designating a piece of art part of the special section requires a simple click of a checkbox.
Websites with regular additions, particularly sites visited often by collectors, are best organised in a way that shows the most recent additions to the site by date. The disadvantage of this system is that the most impressive pieces in Grapefruit Moon's collection -- such as original paintings of Marilyn Monroe -- are soon lost as new pieces are added to the site.
To resolve this issue, nigelparry.net created a feature in the content management system which enables the client, with just a simple click on a checkbox, to add a piece to a special section of the site known as The Golden Gallery. Pieces checked continue to be easily found in their appropriate site category, eg. Pulp & Paperback, but now additionally appear in The Golden Gallery, section, which showcases the highlights of the collection.
As an acknowledgement of the unique pieces in The Golden Gallery, the section's pages display only clickable thumbnails of the artwork, identified only by title and artist name. This section format is generated automatically by the content management system.
Above: The Golden Gallery's index page. Auto-generated links at the bottom of every gallery page on the site lists other works by the same artist.
The homepage of the site offers a brief overview of each of the sections of the Grapefruit Moon catalog, with a deco-styled feature box for each site section (see right).
Most prominently located on the feature boxes are pieces from the section that are also featured in The Golden Gallery, followed by the four artworks most recently added to the section.
Navigation on Grapefruit Moon Gallery is self-evident, with a "What I Click Is What I Get" (WICIWIG) scheme implemented wherever title graphics appear, in addition to ubiquitous text links. For example, someone clicking on Pin-up & Glamour Art at the top of the graphic on the right, would get to the index page of that section of the catalog. If you click on "From The Golden Gallery" you are taken to The Golden Gallery index.
Similarly, when you click on the artwork featured from the special section, you go directly to the artwork's catalog page, as in the case of the four thumbnails listed as recently added. Clicking on the "Recently Added" title itself will take to you the global "What's New?" page for the site. Clicking on the "More..." text link under the three pieces will take you to the Pin-up & Glamour Art index page, which lists all the pieces in that section. The navigation makes sense.
The homepage of the site offers a brief overview of each of the sections of the Grapefruit Moon catalog, with a deco-styled feature box for each site section (see right). 
