For centuries, women have utilized the technique of collage, a form of art in which miscellaneous materials are attached to a supporting surface. I have designed and coded a website entitled, “The History of Collage Queens” which displays a timeline of the history of women’s involvement in collage. My goal was to create a way to share this relatively unknown part of art history in an accessible and approachable way. The information is paraphrased in my own voice to offer a casual tone, often with an air of whimsy and humor.
Throughout my website, I celebrate female collage artists by referring to them as “collage queens”. Because of this, I use crowns as a motif. My design includes collaged elements throughout the website to explore the possibilities of traditional media in interactive spaces. To organize my timeline, I divided my research into distinct time periods. Each time period is represented by a collage I created with physical materials and digitized. These collages contain images that supplement the topics discussed in the research. The unique challenges of this endeavor has allowed me to discover and participate in a legacy of collage queens.
I began by gathering inspiration. I looked at the way other people had made collages and timelines.
My project needed branding. A look and logo to tie everything together. I creative several options before landing on one. This logo has elements of scrappiness, femininity, and royalty.
I found that usings scraps of paper and moving them around was not just for collage. This was a great way to think about how the website would work.
This was one of the final wireframe I made before I began coding.
I really wanted to incorporate the handmade into my site as much as possible. I experimented with how to digitize these collaged timelines. Photos were too blurry when I tried to print them out and photograph them in the timeline. Pasting down elements reduced texture and dimension. The method I ended up using began with deciding what photos I wanted to include in the timeline and making placeholders for them. I would then design the collage around the placeholders. I tried to keep the colors and materials consistent while relating the design to the time period and content. I would then photograph the timeline and pull it into photoshop to erase the background and unwanted elements. Then, I placed in images over the placeholders.
In November of 2019, I presented my work in progress as part of my honors undergraduate capstone project. This allowed me to receive feedback and consider the potential educational applications of this site.
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