Saturday 30 January 2010

Website re-design

After Shauns Seminar we were told to come up with another website which either can be a different design or make changes to our original version.

Thursday 28 January 2010

Validated

Ive finally got round to validating my website which to my suprise, did not come back with any errors! lol


Wednesday 27 January 2010

Broad Oak Website Elements

I have decided for one of my website elements i wanted to bring a vector version of their oak tree. I did this by taking the photo of the tree and drawing it using the 'Pen' tool in Illustrator CS3.

stage 1


stage 2


stage 3



stage 4



stage 5

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Criticism

Now that i have put my first initial website together i received feedback from my tutor to make changes and now come up with more ideas for our website.

Points made about my design:

  • Too much white space
  • Not symmetrical enough (the tree is off centred making the design look off centre)
  • Size is too small (I made the design 800 x 600 but realised it doesn't work with bigger monitor sizes


Wednesday 20 January 2010

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Pictures for website

For my website for the Broad Oak i went out and took pictures which i may be able to incorporate into my design.





Mind Map


Saturday 16 January 2010

Wireframes

Some inital ideas for my layout






Sunday 10 January 2010

Wordpress Blog

So far i have managed to signup to Wordpress.com and changed the style of a template by changing such things as the CSS colours.

Screenshot of the template.


Waterfall VS Whirlpool Software Models

In the early stages of software development it was recognised as the main model for many systems. The solution offered steps early providing requirements early. Each of the various stages is approached, completed and signed off before moving onto the next step.

This model also was made with the intension of being able to ‘Freeze’. This allowed anyone to stop the process and move onto the next one. This in my opinion can cause allsorts of problems varying from design changes to time management errors e.g. imagine freezing a construction of a building and going back to it later with a different approach.





The ‘Whirlpool’ model has a much better system than the ‘Waterfall’ model as it allows changes over and over again. This holds no restrictions when it comes to the process which allows a more in-depth approach allowing such problems as expense and errors being notified before action.




In comparison the Whirlpool I think is a better approach if I were to use if for a website. This process would allow me to go back on designs and implement them as building blocks providing a more in-depth approach. This would provide me with the option of working on one stage at a time.

Whereas if I used the ‘Waterfall’ process, I would be able to get a good idea of my website process before any actions but doesn’t allow any options for major changes. Only the option to ‘Freeze’ my design, but the downside is I can’t change anything in the design.
The Whirlpool software development process can be used in Web Design.

Brief
Research
Development
Design
Implementation
Testing
Deploy
Maintenance

Saturday 2 January 2010

3 Influential Practitioners

We had to talk about three practitioners that influence us which are not Web Designers.

To choose 3 top designers that influence me is hard; I have so many designers which influence me in many different ways. Below are 3 of them and what aspects of their work inspire me.

Vitaly Alexius Illustrator

Vitaly Alexius is a Freelance Illustrator/Photographer. He was born in 1984 in an industrial city of Novokuznetsk in Siberian Russia. He had been interested in drawing since he was about 4. He did several courses in Traditional Drawing and Illustration. He wasn’t known until he found a programme called Photoshop which allowed him to express his talent.

Most of Vitaly’s work uses traditional art mixed in with illustration. I like his use of colours to represent/express different moods. I also like the way he uses past and futuristic elements to create a virtual world. But what inspires me most is that he is able to express himself freely. He has no limitations. I want to take this idea of no limitations and being able to push the boundaries of creativity of Web design.






Alan Becker Flash/Animator

Alan Becker is a Flash Animator was born in Ohio, he first started out just simply drawing at home and coming up with ideas for animation. He started at an early age and studied Flash and other software before he was discovered over the internet through a website called Deviantart.

The below animation; which was the animation which first caught my eye is the animation which allowed me to discover his works. I like the unusual idea of his work and the idea of how simplistic it is. One of the most inspiring things that I like is the thought of being discovered online; which is one of many new opportunities. I hope to use this idea by creating a portfolio website and publishing it to the web.


http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/077/2/e/Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker.swf.


Nina Matsumoto Cartoonist

Nina Matsumoto is a Japanese-Canadian comic book artist and writer, also known as space coyote, and most known for creating the comic book series Yƍkaiden for Del Rey Manga. She created the webcomic Saturnalia and has also done work as a penciller for Bongo Comics.

What I like most about Nina’s work is she uses her own imagination rather than sticking to a list of rules.. One of my favourite pieces of work is her manga stylized parody (below). She has took the cast of the Simpsons and created a unusual concept. What attracts me most about her work is she is able to take current/existing ideas and put her mark on it through re-creation. I want to build on my web skills by re-designing current websites and making them my own style.