about the images

While work is being done behind the scenes to revamp the BritishMac.com website a selection of proposed webpage layouts and rough drafts of images will be produced to test out ideas. The majority of these will never make it into the finished website (certainly not in their unfinished form). However, access to these proposed layouts and drafts of images is quite important for anyone involved with the actual revamp process. If anyone has too much time on their hands and is following the progress of the website revamp they may also find these things interesting - which is why they have been placed in a location which is accessible rather than being tucked away in a hidden folder somewhere.

Revised main image of British Mac Row
The existing image of British Mac Row was created from a photograph of the Sherlock Holmes Museum (located at Baker Street, London) with an additional doorway added to the left of the building.
The revised image which is currently being played around with also uses the Sherlock Holmes Museum. This time from a wider angle, without the additional door being Photoshopping in to the left, but with a pub being added to the right. The pub exterior which is currently being used for this is The Sherlock Holmes Pub (located at 10 Northumberland Street, London).
A VERY rough idea of what is being worked upon can be seen in this rough draft.
Inside of the British Mac Library
The image being played around with to use as the inside of the British Mac Library draws strongly from steam punk for it's inspiration. It features a Victorian library / drawing room which opens out into a further area housing computers based on images of Colossus and the Bombe (rebuilt versions of which are located at Bletchley Park). The walls of the library itself house a mixture of books alongside the wires and vacuum tubes which these old computers relied upon.
A VERY rough idea of what is being worked on can be seen in this rough draft.
The British Mac Lounge
In line with all the other images of places used on the revamped BritishMac.com website, the lounge will be based on a photograph of a real location. Somewhere that may be good for this is the first floor living room at the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The one downside to this location is that the lighting in the actual room can make taking photographs quite difficult - although spending sufficient time and taking a large number of shots should get around this.
Reception area for the Pussy Cat Club
The idea behind the Pussy Cat Club has always been of something similar to a private members club. Somewhere with big comfy leather sofas, puddings served with custard, smoking rooms and fine wines. Somewhere away from the riff raff where like minded souls could talk about what ever took their fancy.
While a number of these places exist, the number who would be happy with having photos of their rooms taken (especially by non members to turn into an image for a website) is small. Because of this, the photos which are eventually played around with will probably have been taken in the lounge area of a Victorian hotel or theatre, however this image should give an idea.
Inside Ye Olde Mac And Mouse
In a way which is rather difficult to explain without a pen and several sheets of paper, the whole of the BritishMac.com will probably end up with several 'frontages' to it's Ye Olde Mac And Mouse (depending on what angle it is being viewed from). It is quite possible that photographs of several different pubs will also play a part in forming whatever images are used for the inside of Ye Olde Mac And Mouse as well.
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe
It is provisionally planned that a section of the website named Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe (or something similar) will contain a selection of links. Inspired by the name, the image which will be used for the inside of this will probably be something along the lines of a Victorian chemist or sweet shop (something like this example).
British Mac Underground Map
When the structure behind a website is described then comparisons to filing cabinets are often made. The probable structure behind the revamped BritishMac.com website would more accurately described as being like that of a theme park than a filing cabinet. While a sitemap will be able to list all the pages which exist it won't be able to fully show the way groups of webpages are linked together. This will however be something which the Interactive British Mac Underground Tourist Information Map Thingy Whatsit Page (to give it a rather long-winded name) attempts to do.
When completed, the British Mac Tourist Information / Underground Map will probably be semi-interactive and largely built using multiple CSS layers on top of a series of nested lists (the episodes timeline page on the British Mac Lists pages uses this type of idea). Alternatively we might just give up on such silly ideas and use a graphic image with image mapped co-ordinates.