IT 
#03 · Lab
Now Playing
An immersive gallery with the lights down, like in a cinema: the image fills the screen and every title carries its own information. We put it to the test with the most spectacular content we know: video games.
The idea
Lights down
At the cinema nobody wonders why the lights go down. They go out, and all that is left is the screen: nothing distracts, the image has all the attention. It is a habit so deeply rooted that we take it for granted, and yet it is a precise design choice.
Now Playing starts from there. The ground is always dark, the image fills the whole screen and the covers follow one another on their own, with a slow zoom and turn that brings even a still frame to life. Everything else, title, details and text, rests on top without competing.
The lights go down and only the screen is left: the content does the rest.
The test bench
Why video games
An immersive layout can only be judged with content that lives up to it. To put it to the test we needed material with the highest visual impact, and few kinds of content match today’s video games: settings crafted like film sets, studied lighting, shots that hold a full screen.
Every title in the series is a small card: studio, year, platform, a comment that scrolls under the title when there is one, and a strip of shots that open full screen, with zoom and navigation. This is how a gallery gains information without losing the scene. Here the games are the test bench: the subject is the layout.
When it fits
When to choose it
A solution like this proves ideal when there is something to present and the content has strong visual impact: a product with carefully shot images, a portfolio of projects, an event told through photographs, a collection.
The opposite holds too. Darkness amplifies everything, flaws included: with mediocre images, a layout like this does not hide them, it exposes them. That is why the question comes before the layout: does the content hold a full screen? If the answer is yes, it is time to dim the lights.