Brief 3

“www.ratm.com” is the legendary political alternative rap/rock band Rage Against the Machine’s official website. This site has been designed for all fans of the band’s long history and provides detailed information about the band. Their music, merchandise, concert information and various other details are shown on this site. The band is known for their left-wing political views, focusing on anti-war activism, imperialism, class struggle, human rights, and various sociopolitical sentiments. These themes are strongly echoed throughout this website.

Images:

The cover image of the main page includes various books that have influenced the band. It would appear that the bands left wing views were influenced by these famous texts. Overlaying the image of the texts is an ongoing slide show with expanding pictures of the bands logo contained with a photo of each group member taken from their live concerts. Also provided overlapping the cover photo is a music player which allows visitors to stream the bands’ music. The overall effect of the cover photo is to provide multiple images that create a strong impression of what the band stands for, in terms of music and ideology and would be very helpful for viewers who are not familiar with the band and enable them to get an immediate idea of who each member of the band is.

Layout:

The layout of the website is very simple, with the homepage itself having a single row of links to the other parts of the site, which is presented as one column. Nielson has stated that users do not go through a web page reading every word but scan in an F shape pattern (Nielson, 2007). This website contradicts conventions of structural text layout and just provides all the information on one single page. No special viewer appealing technique has been used to engage viewers. It seems as if there is too much information on one single page to be an effective ‘eye-catching’ website. However, the band themselves are known for their socialist beliefs and anti-commercialism, this may be reflected in the site, which does not try to use techniques to manipulate the viewing experience.

Colours/font:

Wysocki (2004) states “The visual presentation of a page or screen gives you an immediate sense of its genre”, and the design of this website certainly reflects the band’s outlook. The background of the whole website is in black, creating a serious and edgy atmosphere in keeping with the band’s use of their music to raise awareness of political and human rights issues – their music is a tool for activism, not merely a mode of entertainment. The use of red brings out the connotations of blood, passion, hostility and danger – this stark black, red and white design echoes the style of communist propaganda and punk imagery which again emphasizes the band’s philosophies. The red star motif, a well-recognized communist symbol definitively announces the band’s political stance. To delve deeper into the choice of colours for the website, one could interpret the use of white text on black rather than the conventional black text on white as a statement in itself. The white bright gothic typeface, the content of which is largely text supporting political movements (as well as promoting the band) are like an illuminating light in the murky landscape of commercial rock music.

Links to other areas of the website:

At the top of the home page, there are various headlining links that lead to other sections of the website. The navigation links from the site are very helpful for people who want to find out more about the band and what they stand for. There are also distinct headlining links to the “Freedom Fighter of the Month” and an exterior site “Axis of Justice”, giving visitors a chance to find out more about the politics of the band. The use of an out link is usually discouraged in traditional textual structures, as it removes the commercial idea of “stickiness” (Warnick, 2006). This is another example of how this website is unconventional and is aimed at getting the band’s message across as much as promoting the band.

Conclusion:

All in all, this website is unusual in a number of ways and has a distinct design in order to achieve a specific goal. Colours and symbols are used to highlight and promote the band’s political stance and this is given as much attention as promotion of the band itself. Not many structural or textual techniques were used on this website, perhaps reinforcing the band’s staunch anti-capitalism. However, the design of is website is well-suited to those who actively wish to know more about the band with free streaming of their music and videos and their non-musical interests, with the option of visiting external websites to learn more about the band’s activism.

References:

Nielson, J. (2007). Writing for the web: Research on how users read on the web and how authors should write their web pages. http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Warnick, B (2006). Rhetoric on the Web. Peter Land Publishing Inc., New York.

Wysocki, A (2004). The Multiple Media of Texts. Michigan Technological University.