Falling Out of Love with Lightbox…
You know the moment you first hear a new song on the radio, and it makes you stop whatever you are thinking about our doing and you turn up the volume? Then you intensely listen towards the end to find out who sings it? It’s that wonderful feeling of finding something new and exhilarating! After awhile it seems everyone begins to love it, which is good. It means you have good taste in music…then you begin to notice that whenever you turn the radio on, there it is…there’s that song…on every station! That’s when it begins to get old and you can’t even stand to listen to it anymore, you hurry and change the channel, anxious to find something else.
This is how I feel about lightbox (and all of it’s predecessors) right about now.
Don’t get me wrong Lokesh Dhakar, I think you have done a marvelous job on Lightbox, but just like an amazing artist who has a colossal hit that tops the charts, it has run it’s course (at least for me). Everywhere I look it’s being used, every new designer’s or photographer’s portfolio I find…there it is! Now there are a few who have taken it upon themselves to alter and adjust the script to help create a more cohesive feel with their site, and have even made very impressive style adjustments via CSS, kudos to all of you! On the other hand, most seem to just roll with the same white box, and are forgetting or don’t even try to advance their portfolio’s to be anything unique. The point of a portfolio is to help you standout from everyone else, if you’re not, then what’s the point? I know it’s like the pot calling the kettle black, I have been guilty too of over using it or it’s predecessors for simple gallery creations, but it’s time to move on.
The reason we all fell in love with Lightbox was that it was something unique, something we hadn’t seen before. The other big thing is that it’s simple to implement into any site, these two things make it addictive to designers. Designer’s need/want something to be unique, on the edge, dynamic and easy to use. So if you have seen anything or have been working on anything ground breaking, please share.
All I’m asking is that I want to see something new, I want to hear that next “underground hit” just waiting to emerge.
I totally agree, when I saw it for the first I was like WOW!
Now you see it everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE, it’s not that special anymore.
Maybe it’s handy to put a few links to galleries/lightboxcreations where they’ve did a nice job on altering the script and such?
Enjoyed reading this little article!
Personally. I’d rather have millions of people using the same lightbox than have to deal with tons of pop-up windows or gallery scripts that aren’t nearly as well made. I don’t find lightbox’s UI to be particularly distracting, and it’s become pretty universal, so much so that pretty much everyone has encountered one, making it a really intuitive choice for displaying images.
@ Bram
Thanks for the comment. I will try to gather a list of of good sites that have creative Lightbox galleries.
@ Todd
Totally agree with you that lightbox is a great universal tool that helps display images without the mess of multiple pop up windows or flash galleries.
My point is that particularly for web designers, our goal is to sell our work and skill sets. When every other designer is using the same presentation, what sets him or her apart from anyone else? You want your site to be remembered, to be the one everyone refers to when they say, “Oh, I just saw this great site that…”.
I’m just ready to be “giddy” again about the next step in web galleries.
Lightboxes are not at all a new thing. I am surprised to hear that lightbox art has become popular yet again. If you have had it enough, step back from it, work on other things and let it run its course. After it dies down, you may find your love for it again.
Welcome to the internet, “logo design guru.”
The topic of discussion is Lightbox ( http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/ ), not lightboxes ( http://www.jerrysartarama.com/discount-art-supplies/Projectors-and-Lightboxes/Artograph-Projectors-and-Lightboxes/Artograph-Light-Tracer-Series-Light-Boxes.htm ).
Guilty as charged…
I am getting a little tired of lightbox too for some of the reasons you mention (lack of people who’ve customized the CSS, primarily), but my main beef with it has to do with speed. One of the reasons that make it so cool are the subtle animation effects. But then, one of the reasons it can feel tiresome is the (sometimes choppy) animation between images. Also, the fact that it seems to be used inappropriately is a little much. For instance, if you have 3 pictures, you don’t need a lightbox.
@Breck et al. On the other hand, when it is used appropriately as on your site, or, for example, the similar plugin used on design rockstar Joshua Davis’ site, I don’t mind it at all.