Friday, June 19, 2009

MY BLOG THEME

Finally my blog theme is complete!

I based my theme around one of my interest which is the UFC of Ultimate fighting championship, The ufc for those who don't know is a Mixed matrial arts competition in which 2 compeitors face each other inside a octagonal cage and fight using any number of style and techniques from various martial arts. there are referee's medical professionals and it is a legitimate sport with rules and regulations like any other it's just like boxing but far more dangerous.

so I decided on using three main colours Red,white and blue as these are the colours of the ufc and would make the page feel much more asthetically linked to anyone that has any knowledge of the sport.

I also tried to texture my coloums and graphic elements with a leather effect because i thought in concept it would match the gloves, safety equipment and boxing bags ect that are utilised by the sport even the ring itself has leather padding so i tried to recreate the feel that way.

I used a 3 coloum css structure because I liked how it turned out in my website and I thought that reusing it here would be a good move as it would allow me to break the page up into 4 elements that would sit well within the page. title,center coloum, left and right boxes.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

My website

http://websitedesign.ueuo.com/webload/goodcopyIndex.html

This is a link to my website for the first assesment item for this course, I decided on a green and black colour scheme with white used for contrast and links because i wanted the website to feel themed and not to busy and or over crowded which would have been hard to acheive with to many colours as the actual structure inplements alot of things on each page.

I'm quite glad with how it turned out and however I did defy convention with my placement of the search bar which is not located at the top left, I placed it where i did because i felt that the title needed to stand alone and there wasn't enough space to place it along side the horizontal navbar or inside the title.

I used a photoshop to create the asthetic design and applied a seperate ccs shet to each html page to ensure that any issues could be fixed on all pages at once rather than by indivdually fixing each page.


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Colour choices finalized and theme locked in!

I've decided on lime green, black and white for my colour range for this website, whilst looking good and not to colorful they also provide good contrast which really helps the website not be over whelming or to bland. the theme i've gone with is urban/brick work that looks fairly ghetto like, i may implement some other brushes like broken glass and graffiti style stuff just to enhance this theme.

Development issues

So far my website is coming along fairly well I have finally decided to make my website using a 3 div, fixed width centered layout this will allow me to keep a tidy website that doesn't feel to cluttered and will also have the added benefit of making it a lot less [painful to implement the criteria pieces such as search bars and downloads. I also plan to implement a map and you tube video inside the left side div as these are out of the way and can remain constant over the enetire website.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Early ideas for website

I'm just throwing some ideas down for later when it comes time to produce my final website. The development Ideas I have at the moment invovle ways of filling the 10 or so pages were expected to create for this website. My first idea at the moment is to add a gallery of images as a page thus allowing for me to include a visual element and help tie in the theme for stone fest by showing images from earlier years of addin picture I can stage myself at the Uc campus using a few friends as the "stonefest crowd" this seems like a good idea at this time cause it will take up some space fit in with the design idea and be something a person viewing the site might find worth navigating to.

Could graphics be the answer?

Graphics, I think the design draft is lacking in this area i'm going to go for the incorporation of more of them where possible because they can keep someone interested in viewing your page without cluttering it which is my real goal for my design. I will have to figure some way of creating these graphics but as I am useless at it at the present and will have to develop some skills in that area. I may have to use photos I will take my self of the campus to flesh out the visual department of my site should this prove beyond me.

Further design reflections

After looking again at my design draft I think perhaps the structure could be slightly improved, to me looking at it again after having time to forget about it for a while and come back with fresh eyes, has allowed me to see that the asthetic may be to large and bold to have any real sophistication. to combat this i may consider scaling everything down and making the page less cluttered theres no reason to have to fill all the space on the page so long as the structure is well set out and the spacing is divided between the structural conventions. Another way to fix this could be to simply add more content but I will have to do some research in that field in order to drum up some information to incorporate as it seems stone fest ins't really the most mind bending or engaging celebration it could prove difficult.

Reflection of design draft

After finishing my design draft I have been thinking about what things I want to improve or change between this draft and the next one and i came up with a few area's that I think would benefit from a re-think. For example the colour scheme to me seems way to bland after seeing it infront of me fully set out in a design draft, black and white while offering good contrast really need a few other colours evident on the page to keep the viewer interested and not have them simply get tired of the asthetics of the page. I think because stonefest is themed every year i may go for a urban / graffiti style of something that ca use black and white as a backdrop and allow the incorporation of other colours, perhaps a black and white suit theme would be a good way to allow for the addition of colour and the original concept can still be used.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Design draft

This week after submitting my design reference post I have started to turn my attention to my design draft, at this stage I am worried that my inability to draw will hold me back. I think that using a camera to gather photos for textures and images and creating graphics on photo shop will be my main course of attack hopefully this wont come off second rate compared to some of the more illustrated work that will probably be on display.

I also have some worries about how to show graphically things like buttons and and links in the draft and their location I may come up with an easy solution between now and then however so I'll try not to worry to much. I think that HTML will be far more challenging because I know nothing about coding and will have to learn it all from scratch, added to this is the fact that I am hopeless at it and don't enjoy it at all.

Edited Rationale

When choosing my reference websites, which was far more difficult than I thought it would be, I first decided on the goals that I would like my website to achieve. I wanted my website to be user-friendly with a fairly self explanatory user interface and to be aesthetically pleasing. So when choosing my reference sites I asked what do people want from a website? The answer is information. Given the nature of Stonefest what kind of design elements appeal to that audience.

The websites that I chose are listed in the Reference Sites list on the right hand side of my blog. You can quickly view these pages should you feel the need however the screen shots I have included will hopefully be enough on their own.

Navigation:
The 5 sites that I have chosen as references all utilize a few different navigation techniques and design conventions; for example they all feature horizontal navigation bars across the top of their page that stay present throughout the site. While perhaps not incredibly inventive this feature is good for many reasons. Firstly as a standard tool of website navigation it is easy to use and needs no trial and error and as a result creates a fast user friendly interface. Secondly this is something that enables you to quickly find your bearings when deeper inside the site and is something that I will implement in my own design as it allows for some aesthetic originality when developing the theme of the design.

Search bar:
All these sites use a search function which allows a Google style search of their entire website. This seems to be situated in the top right by convention within most sites, and is something I will implement in my design as it is both expected of the website and helpful to the user. Links: Some of these websites also offer links to other similar websites or member login fields and while the location ranges it seems to be mostly housed in the top right hand corner of the page by convention. I am not sure I will implement this in my design due to lack of technical knowledge. If I become familiar with how to go about implementing a membership function I will reconsider.

Display:
All of these websites are fixed width and centered, not liquid, and seem to support a main content or information strip running down the center of the page. This allows the website to provide the user with all the relevant information by scrolling down. Whilst this makes the websites look more tidy by keeping everything in a Grid order it also tends to make the center of the page look cluttered and lends it a blog style feel.

Road Runner Record's web page has a blog inspired feel because it seems to scroll on through the content in a consecutive display that you must then chose from to explore deeper. It also seems to be wasting valuable space along with big day out website by not utilizing the space on the left hand margin of the page for a second more specific navigation bar instead using a grid style or window that must be clicked to advertise and link to information.

This is the point that separates the UFC homepage from the big day out and road runner records page; both use the same conventions with the UFC having a more news/blog orientated style layout and is the one I will adopt when designing my own website making the content more re-newable and incorporating a grid style link for information / bands on the left hand side as this information will not change whereas venue and time as well as promotion will.

Aesthetic theme/colour:
All of these websites use similar styles and aesthetic feels. This usually includes two main colours: black and white seem to be the most popular followed by red. This appears to be a design convention in creating a theme for websites and the similarity of choice between the pages may be a result of the content. All of these websites use both image and text to entice the user to further explore the website and is something that I fully intent to include in my website design. I like it because it is easy to understand and works well at both advertising content and allowing graphics to shape the feel of the website. Even the Hoyts and UFC website utilize graphics and selectable "tiles" to allow the viewer to explore the site and are a convention I will aim to employ.

Video or graphic:
These websites often have a video or graphic link that appears under the navigation bar. I like this as it is interactive and allows a lot of space for an appealing image or imformation contact point for the user and is something that while I may struggle to implement and understand technically how to include, I will look into incorporating. Content Placement: All of the websites I have chosen have fairly shallow amounts of information or content evident on the title page; instead they have many links competing for your attention that require you chose and follow them to other pages containing the bulk of the content on that particular topic. Text links and graphic "tile" style links are arranged in a blog style or format that lists them down the page and are updated and replaced as new content becomes available. This is a design aspect I will adopt.

Title Page:
I will also use the Title Page convention which appears before the home page of the website, in some of these websites to advertise the site. This appeals to me because it is a bit out of the ordinary and provides a good opportunity to set the theme of the website.

Banner/logo:
All of these websites follow the same convention when it comes to their title or logo. Present in the center of the webpage (usually above the horizontal navigation bar) sits a graphic of their website or company name which is visually appealing, and attention-grabbing. It is often complemented with a background colour or underlying graphic that helps it stand out from the rest of the content whilst still maintaining the visual feel of the page. This design convention works quite well and is one, that after seeing how simple and effective it is I strive to include in my own design. However I may modify it as I feel that for many of these sites, specifically Hoyts, roadrunner and UFC that it does tend to be easily missed because of the overall volume of content on the page that focuses the eye to the center.

Why I chose these design References:
I chose these design conventions because they are all appealing to me as an audience member of something like Stonefest and will be attractive and inviting, easy to understand and to use effectively.

Design Rationale

When choosing my reference websites, which I found to be far more difficult that I had believed it would be, I first decided on the goals that I would like my website to achieve. I want my website to be easy to operate with a fairly self explanatory user interface and to be aesthetically pleasing. So when choosing my reference sites I asked what do people want from a website the answer is information and given the nature of Stonefest what kind of design elements are appealing to that audience.

The websites that I chose are listed in the Reference Sites list on the right hand side of my blog you can quickly view these pages should you feel the need however the screen shots I will Include will hopefully be enough on their own.

Navigation:
The 5 sites that I have chosen as references all utilize a few different navigation techniques and design conventions, for example they all feature a horizontal navigation bars across the top of their page that stay present throughout the site, this whilst maybe not incredibly inventive is good for many reasons. Firstly as a standard tool of website navigation it is easy to use and needs no trial and error and as a result creates a fast user friendly interface, Secondly this is something that enables you to quickly find your bearings when deeper inside the site and is something that I will implement in my own design as it allows for some aesthetic originality when developing the theme of the design.

Search bar:
All these sites use a search function which allows a Google style search of their entire website, this seems to be in the top right by convention within most sites, and is something i will implement in my design as it is both expected of the website to be able to do this and helpful to the user.

Links:
Some of these websites also offer links to other similar websites or member login fields, while the location ranges it seems to be mostly housed in the top right hand corner of the page by convention, this is something that I am not sure i will implement in my design due to lack of technical knowledge however should I become familiar with how to go about implementing a membership function I would reconsider.

Display:
All of these websites are fixed width and Centered not liquid and seem to support a with the main content or information running down the center strip of the page, this allows the website to provide the user with all the relevant information by scrolling down. This whilst making the websites look more tidy by keeping everything in a Grid or order also tends to make the center of the page look cluttered and lends it a blog style feel.

Road Runner Record's web page has a blog inspired feel because it seems to scroll on through the content in a one after another type display that you must then chose from to explore deeper. It also seems to be wasting valuable space along with big day out website by not utilizing the space on the left hand margin of the page for a second more specific navigation bar instead using a grid style or window that must be clicked to advertise and link to information.

This is the point that separates the UFC homepage from the big day out and road runner records page both use the same conventions with the UFC having a more news/blog orientated style layout and is the one I will adopt when designing my own website making the content more re-new able and incorporating a grid style link for information / bands on the left hand side as this information will not change where as venue and time as well as promotion will.

Aesthetic theme/colour:
All of these websites use similar styles and aesthetic feels. This usually includes two main colours, black and white seem to be the most popular followed by red, This appears to be a design convention in creating a theme for website and the similarity of choice between the pages may be a result of the content. All of these websites use both image and text to entice the user to further explore the website and is something that I fully intent to include in my website design, this is good because it is easy to understand and works well at both advertising content and allowing graphics to shape the feel of the website. Even the Hoyts and Ufc website utilize graphics and selectable "tiles" to allow the viewer to explore the site and are a convention I will aim to employ.

Video or graphic:
These websites often have a video or graphic link that appears under the navigation bar i like this as it is interactive and allows a lot of space for a appealing image or imformation contact point for the user and is something that while I may struggle to implement and understand technically how to include, I will look into incorporating.

Content Placement:
All of the websites I have chosen chose to have fairly shallow amounts of information or content evident on the title page, instead they have many links competing for your attention that require you chose and follow them to other pages containing the bulk of he content on that particular topic. Text links and graphic "tile" style links are arranged in a blog style or format that lists them down the page and are updated and replaced as new content becomes available. this is a design aspect I like and will use.

Title Page:
I will also use the Title Page convention which appears before the home page of the website in the case of some of these websites to advertise the site. This appeals to me because it is a bit out of the ordinary and provides a good opportunity to set the theme of the website.

Banner/logo:
All of these websites follow the same convention when it comes to their title of logo, Present in the center of the webpage (usually above the horizontal navigation bar) sits a graphic of their website or company name which is visually appealing, and often some of the largest text on the page. It is often complemented with a background colour or underlying graphic that helps it stand out from the rest of the content whilst still maintaining the visual feel of the page. This design convention works quite well and is one, that after seeing how simple and effective it is I strive to include in my own design. however I may modify it as I feel that for many of these sites, specifically Hoyts, roadrunner and UFC that it does tend to be easily missed because of the overall volume of content on the page that focuses th eye to the center.

Why I chose these design References:
I chose these design conventions because they are all appealing to someone like me who is a audience member for something like stone fest and will be easy to understand and use effectively.

Images Soundwave


Saturday, March 14, 2009

Images Big Day Out and Hoyts




Refrence sites

At the moment I am finding it difficult to find websites that I really like the design of, alot of them follow really similar conventions which is good because they defiantly make the sites easier to use and navigate however this also makes it harder to say anything specific about one or the other i guess i'll just have to try and find 5 that I think would really aid me in making a good website for my stone fest website. One thing I am happy about at least is that these websites don't have to have anything in common in terms of content because that could make this task much more difficult in my opinion.

As for design ideas for my website i haven't really contemplated that yet I do know one thing for certain at this time but and that is a think I will go for a standard website layout that consists of centered information that scrolls down for as long as it has to, most probably paired with a left aligned navigation list for navagating into individual pages on information and a navigation bar running horizontal to the top which will support a Banner/ Title and perhaps a Graphic. Also some kind of window that shows links to the newest information under the horizontal navigation bar sounds good to so long as i can find a way to do it so that it is clear it is updated as information becomes available.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Development post 1

At the moment I am still undecided about which festival i would like to design a website for, it's jard because I don't really have any background knowledge of these things as i don't really find them all that interesting! However that said during the lecture we were told that we could chose something like the big day out and design a website for them however my tutor said that there website was in pretty good shape and that it would be hard to divorce yourself from the fell there designer had already imparted on it, which I think could be a fair call. With that in mind I think that the website most poorly contsructed to begin with may be my best bet so i really need to weigh up my two choices ither the stonefest website which could use a bit of a fix up in the design aspect but could be slightly difficult to find good resources of information on or the folkfestival which has a ok website and a fair bit of infomration it just seems the layout and structure of this website are a little bit all over the place.

First Post

Hello, This is my first post on this blog as I have just created it to chronicle the research and development that will be carried out over the next semester of Web design and production. After researching a few of the other blog sites I settled on blogger because of it's aesthetic values and its user friendly interface. Tumblr and other blog sites I looked into seemed to look much more cluttered and harder to achieve as a pleasing result without going to extended effort, which ultimately resulted in me dismissing them as blog hosts.