The objective of the website was to further extend the reach and possibility of the work. It is a more accessible platform for the archive than the books. An added benefit of a website is that it can keep growing.
I had previous experience designing and building websites on no-code platforms such as Wix, Editor X, etc. Also, I had some elementary introduction to HTML and Javascript, but I had never coded a functioning website into existence. Keeping that in mind, I approached it with a very basic form that my guide suggested. It is a single-page website. Whenever someone loads the page, an image randomly chosen from the archive is displayed, accompanied by a caption. On clicking a button on the page every time, another random image is shown along with its caption.
Website Prototype
Further possibilities for the website are:
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The website can have a CMS (content management system) added to it that holds the images along with detailed captions and keyword tags. A designer, an artist, or a researcher looking for a particular kind of work can search images with text input and filter them with one or multiple keywords.
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It can be opened to submission by other people, which will then be curated and added to the archive. This will allow the archive to grow faster and help to add more scripts and languages.
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Information about the craft of sign-painting, Indian scripts, typography, calligraphy, etc. can be added to enrich the visitors’ experiences and to increase the value of the website.
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It can become a platform where clients can commission work to painters online.