Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Self Evaluation


     For this module the task given was to design a website that would promote our own work and photography. I really liked the sound of this module when I first heard it because I enjoy designing things and really like the graphics side of it as I enjoy graphics. At the beginning I had a slight idea of how I would like my website to be, only because I know what I like myself when looking through a website. This being the case I starting researching websites that I liked and felt worked really well and others that I felt didn’t work so well. Once doing this I got an idea of aspects from different websites that I would like to create and have similar functions in my own. After researching other website’s I created a wireframe so I could get a visual idea of what my website might look like, I also created a sitemap for my website so I could decide what navigation I would need on it. I also had to think of the kind of audience that would be visiting my website and who would be interested and looking at my images and work so I had to also take that into account.
     When I had done this and got feedback from my proposal and wireframes and ideas I started on creating my own logos in photo shop which I could use for the header on my website and then started designing on photo shop on the computer.
     The first thing I decided on was my layout so used my wireframe to create the same layout on the computer then I had to decide my colour scheme. For the colour scheme I decided that I wanted it to be quite plain and not have too much colour on it, reason being because I prefer more simple clean looking websites and don’t like too much colour on them and with picking the colour I did I felt like it would complement all my images on my website and not be to over powering, the colours I chose were white and a light lilac colour.
     Next thing after creating the frame for my website was choosing the font of my writing and which header I would use. I narrowed down the headers to two I liked and then asked people’s opinions on them and people preferred the one I decided to use. I then took a while to decide on my font for my navigation bar and changed it a few times but finally came up with one that I felt was easy for people to read and fit in well with the whole site. The next thing I decided on was my image for my homepage I chose the one I did because the colours in my image fit in really well with the colour scheme of the website so felt it would work well and also wouldn’t get old or dated.
     The images I chose to show as an example of a page of my website were images I felt showed the work that I most enjoy creating. I had these images under the category of ‘Personal’ because it was the kind of work I do in my own time and do for myself. I also showed how my about page would look for this I used a simple font that would be easy to read and didn’t write it too formal as I wanted my personality to show through and wanted people to feel like I had wrote it as if I was talking to them.
     For the whole of my website my layout doesn’t change, all that changes is when you click on a category the image in the middle and the thumbnails of the images, everything else stays the same. I designed it like this because I didn’t want my website to be complicated in any way I wanted it to be simple to use so that anyone can use it and I wanted it to be simple but effective.
     Overall I feel that my website looks professional and works well with how I wanted it to look and work. The main part of this brief was to help strengthen our skills on photo shop and I feel that I really have and learnt a vast amount more about photo shop and how to do certain things that I never knew about before. I really enjoyed this brief and it has been my favourite one to date and would love to do something else like this again.  

Final Website Design


This is how my final website turned out, I am really happy with the result and think that it is a website that would be easier for people to navigate around and easy to use. I also like how it's simple but effective and shows off my work the way I want it to and also shows my personality through it. Here are images of the three pages I need to show which is my homepage, about page and a page showing my images. 
(Can click on images to make bigger). 



Those are the three final pages of my website and I feel the layout and how I've created it works really well together. 



My Website

For my website I wanted it to have quite a plain colour scheme and also be easy to navigate. I wanted it like this because that is the kind of website that I like and enjoy browsing on. On the previous developments of how my website would look I felt they worked well but could use a few more changes. This being the case I decided to change a couple of things.
The two main factors I decided to change was the font on my navigation bar so it would be easier to read and having the main image full size with the icons of my images underneath all next to each other without a gap to show how you can click through and see more. I also changed my social icons and moved them to the top of my website so they would be easier to see and changed them so they fit in more with my website.

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Development Of Website


After deciding and creating my homepage I had to show what my website would look like if you clicked onto one of my category's. With my website most of it would stay the same because I always wanted the navigation bar to stay there but there would be some slight changes to the main and middle part of the site. This is how I wanted to show my images if clicked onto and is an example of my 'personal work' page. 


As you can see the main heading part of the website and navigation doesn't change or move, all the changes is the middle section of the site showing the images and thumbnails that can be scrolled/clicked through.

Development Of Website

From that my website developed. I had decided near the beginning that I would want all the navigation to stay where it was whatever you clicked on so that would stay there no matter what part of the website you were on. This is the home page I created and thought worked well on my site.


I chose this image for my main homepage image because I felt like it fitted in well with the colour scheme I had and just looked right.

Start Of Website

After doing my wire frame I had to start making and developing my web design on photo shop. When first starting I created the same kind of frame I had drawn but on the computer in photo shop. I also had decided on one of my logo's which I had created earlier on and I  had also decided on a colour scheme, which would be very plain (white and very light purple).
This is a print screen of how the process started off. 



From this print screen you can see how my website started developing. I used all my category's that I had said I would on my site map and also used the same basic wire frame idea with my chosen logo.

Wire Frame

Next we had to create a wire frame of how we would like our website to look. It only had to be a rough sketch and after researching other websites that I had liked (which I showed in my proposal) I came up with a wire frame of how I wanted my website to be.




This is the sketch of the wire frame I came up with for my website, I scanned it into the computer. It's only a rough sketch but gives an idea of how it would look.