Gallery Restructure: Photomanip and Mixed Media

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What is this gallery restructure about?



How many of you get confused about which gallery to submit your art? I know I do sometimes, and I hear frequently that others do as well. This is your chance to help reduce that confusion!

The overall goal of the dA-wide gallery restructuring project is to reduce redundancy and make submitting art a lot more straightforward by making sure there is a home for every type of art. moonbeam13 gives more information about the project here:

Gallery Makeover ProjectHello everyone :)
Recently my team and I worked tirelessly on a project to help improve the gallery descriptions and thumbnail examples.  While that project was indeed tedious with almost 4,000 categories in our system, it was also educational.  What I learned from sorting through thousands and thousands of categories was that we have a lot of redundancy and a lot of categories that seem to have been created on a whim that are now simply homes for junk.
Over the years, the desire to appease niche communities and people who just wanted a specific area has led to some categories that go up to 4 levels deep, and it's really no wonder it's so confusing for people to figure out where to submit their artwork.
The conclusion I've come to is simplicity.  While I'm not about to rip apart everything and make 6 stand alone categories, I do believe that there is a lot we can do to simplify the category tree.  That includes some of the following:
1. Merging categories that ma


For our part of the project, we will be considering restructuring the Photomanipulation and Mixed Media galleries.

In other words, we are looking for:

:bulletblue: Sub-categories that are superfluous and can be removed
:bulletblue: Sub-categories that need to be added
:bulletblue: Sub-categories that could be merged
:bulletblue: Sub-categories that are great and should be left alone




Both the Photomanipulation and the Mixed Media galleries have the following categories:



Abstract: Focus on the formal, non-representational aspect of imagery, emphasizing lines, colors, and generalized or geometric forms.

Animals & Plants: Feature animal or plant life as the main focus

Conceptual: The idea or message, and not the execution, is the main focus.

Dark: Dark theme or mood; having a mystical, obscure, sombre, grim or sinister expression.

Emotional: Intended to portray, evoke, or represent emotion.

Fantasy: Depict supernatural or magical themes, often relating to legend, myth, and enchanted creatures

Humorous: Intended to be satirical or amusing.

Landscapes & Scenery: Places or scenery, real or imaginary.

Macabre / Horror: Portray or evoke extreme fear, such as represented by blood and gore, or psychological terror

Other: Artwork that does not fit into any other category

People: Human characters, emotions, or actions as the main focus

Political: Represent current or historical events in the political arena or depicting political figures

Pop Art: Display objects or scenes from everyday life that employ techniques of commercial art and popular illustration

Sci-Fi: Science fiction art depicting speculative scientific discoveries, space travel and scenes, and otherworld life forms

Surreal: Defy the laws of logic and/or physics, creating often dreamlike scenery in which the impossible and implausible are depicted




Here's what I need from you

:

:bulletblue: What is missing? Is there a category you always wish you could submit to but it's not there?
:pointr: If something needs to be added, what kinds of things would go into it? Give me a description.

:bulletblue: What is superfluous (unnecessary)?

:bulletblue: Is there anything that needs to be combined?

:bulletblue: Other thoughts?




Ideas MEMBERS have come up with so far:



:bulletblue: Get rid of:
:pointr: Animals and Plants
:pointr: People
:pointr: Pop Art  --> Nothing but miscats and manipulations of illegal images


:bulletblue: Add:
:pointr: Digital Collage?
:pointr: Photo retouching (This would be in Mixed Media, but would it be its own category or be sorted into Abstract, Fantasy, etc.?)
:pointr: "Morphs" (into Digital Art > Other?)
:pointr: "Religious" as a new sub-category?
:pointr: "Children" as a new sub-category?
:pointr: "The Natural World" (with subcategories for Landscapes & Scenery, Animals, and Plants)
:pointr: "Action" as a category


What do you think? Do you agree? Let us know how you feel.


Looking forward to hearing what you have to say!


Thanks,

Jade

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Comments71
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Elandria's avatar
Having compared the vast majority of other suggested gallery changes heres what I would change to provide more clarity and continuity between all other galleries

Merge "Abstract & Surreal"
Rename "People" to "People & Portraits"
Rename "Macabre/Horror" to "Macabre & Horror" (if it isn't already)
Rename "Scifi" to "Science Fiction"
Leave "Animals & Plants"
Leave "Landscapes & Scenery"
Remove "pop art"

I find the suggestions for "the natural world", "action", "children", "religious", "digital collage" unnecessary. The purpose of the makeover is to clarify and condense, not make more sub cats.

I do agree that adding a "photo retouching" sub cat to mixed media might be useful, as they are very clearly not photomanipulations.

I would even go so far to suggest removing "Emotional" & "Humorous" as they could be very easily merged into more significant categories like "conceptual" or "people & portraits"

:thumbsup: