Tuesday 10 March 2009

Screen designs

After doing a range of sketches in my sketch book I came up with a number of different designs, I then picked designs that I thought would be ideal for my portfolio. I then designed them using Indesign. These are 3 of my designs, I have used various designs so that I would be able to receive feedback on these.

Please feel free to leave any suggestions and feedback on my designs.

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Competitive analysis

Student Portfolio
www.rachaelnelsondesign.co.uk

The website has a simplistic design, there are three main colours that have been used these are white, grey and green. This provides a good contrast for people who are viewing the website. The same layout has been used through out the website to keep consistency.

The main emphasis of the website is on the banner, even though the banner adds a graphical feature, I think this could have been a bit smaller as this would make the banner fit in with the overall look of the website more. The main features such as the links could have been made to stand out more so that when users are using the website they can navigate around the site more easily.

The homepage has a welcome page which is also been used to show recent work and news updates. I like the way the text has been broken down so that there isn’t loads of writing to scroll through.

The about me page has information about the designer. On this page she has also added recent work and news updates again, I think that maybe this doesn’t need to be on every page and could also be categorized so that this fits in with the portfolio page.

Her portfolio page has a number of different websites that she has designed, I like the way that the websites have been designed has it makes it easy to view her work. But I think may be she could have had less writing on the page so that more websites she has designed could have been added to the page.

The contact page has a simple contact from to leave information so that you aren’t having to fill in boxes of information.

Professional Portfolio
www.mark-till-online.co.uk

The website is well structured, there are there main colours that have been used these are white, grey and green. The website has a clean look and is well laid out keeping his portfolio simple with only having a few pages. The same layout has been used through out the website to keep consistency.

The homepage has all of the main information for the website. On each of the pages there is a moving image which allows you to click on it so that you are able to view his work. I like this feature as it allows you to view his work from any page that you are on. The text is well set out making the main text bold so that you know what the website offers.

The portfolio page has images and text to explain what the website is about. I think that the images are at a good size so that these are easy to view so that you no exactly what the website is about. On some of the paragraphs there is to much spacing between them, if they were more together it may make it a little bit easier to read.

The contact page has a contact form which has a few boxes to leave any details.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Delivery Requirements

To design my website I will need a range of Software and Technologies:

Macromedia Dreamweaver CS3
I will use this software for the actual build of my website. It will also be used to create my XHTML and CSS.

Adobe Photoshop CS3
I will use Photoshop for any graphical work I design for my portfolio. I will also use this for image optimisation and file sizes.

Adobe Flash CS3
As this is a new skill I am learning, I will try to use Flash to produce elements of my website

XHTML 1.0 Strict
I will use Extensible HyperText Markup Language version 1.0 Strict. I will use this to produce a document to structure the content for my portfolio. This will also enable me to mark up elements for my website. I will ensure that my website site is validated and also well structured.

CSS 2.1
I will use Cascading Style Sheets version 2.1 this will be used to give style and layout to my website. I will ensure that my website is well structured so that it will be easier to validate and maintain my website.

FTP
I will use an FTP so that I am able to upload my website and any other files from my local computer to the internet this will allow people to view my website.

PHP
I will use PHP to design a contact form for my website this will be used for people to contact me.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Target Audience

Primary Target Audience – Educationalists

Chloe is a 30 year old women, who works Full time for the BTEC Exam Board. In her working hours she normally uses her works laptop which is Microsoft Windows XP, where she accesses the internet mainly to check her emails and also word processing. She only has basic computer knowledge as she mainly users her computer in working hours. She occasionally uses her home computer in her personal time for accessing the internet to mainly shop online. Her use of the internet would be between 3 – 6 hours per week. Her connectivity is through her computer where she has 4MB broadband connection and uses Internet Explorer version 7. The types of sites she would normally visit are Amazon, Ebay and Google Mail.

Secondary Target Audience – Potential Employers

Tim is a 40 year old man, who is a full time lead designer for a company in Leeds. In his working hours he normally uses his computer which is Windows Vista to do a range of design jobs, also to access the internet and his emails. He has a wide range of computer knowledge were he is interested in learning more about different technologies. In his personal time he uses his computer to do design jobs from home, to access the internet and to check his emails. His connectivity is through his home computer were he has 8MB broadband connection and uses Firefox version 3.0.6. The types of websites he would normally visit are Amazon, Book Depositary and Corbis.

Tertiary Target Audience – Clients

Amy is a 24 year old women, who is a full time makeup artist. The website is used mainly for advertising her business and needs a redesign as the website needs modernising to entice new customers. She uses her laptop which is Windows XP for her business and also for her personal time, as she likes to keep records of her clients appointment information. She also uses the internet to shop online for new products and to check her emails. Her internet connectivity is 4MB broadband connection and uses Internet Explorer version 7. The types of websites she would visit are Amazon, Dior and ASOS.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Project Goals

1. I will design my website to W3C accessibility guidelines 1.0 Level A

The website I produce needs to be compliant to these accessibility guidelines as it will make my website accessible to a wider audience. This will make users who use my portfolio be able to use it with ease. This could be measured by usability testing my website.

2. I will make my website easy to update and flexible

Making my website consistent will allow me to update the pages to suit different situations such as presentations and job interviews. I will make the layouts of my pages easy to adapt keeping them simple. This will also allow users to navigate around the website easily. This could be also measured by testing my website on a number of users.

3. I will make sure my web pages are no more then 3 clicks away

I will make sure that my content is no more them 3 clicks away this will make the navigation of my site easy to use and will be suitable for adapting my webpages.

4. I will use a variety of technologies

I will use arrange of technologies that I have learnt on the course and implement these in to my website such as XHTML, CSS and Flash. This will help show employers that I have learnt different skills thought out the course.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Final Semester and Flash

It’s the final semester at college and I am really looking forward to the last assignments we have to learn but also scared at the same time as there isn’t many weeks left at college. I feel that in the last semester I really need to get out of it every thing I can, so that if I do choose to work in this industry I will feel ready to go in to employment. Even though I have learnt so much on the course so far at the moment I don’t really feel like I would be ready to go in to employment, as there is so much more that I need to learn about. But there are still enough weeks at college to improve my skills. Hopefully the new assignments will give me the knowledge that I will need to learn to improve on my skills that I have learnt on the course so far.

I am looking forward to the new assignment which is the Self Managed Learning Plan. I have chosen to learn about Flash and Action script something that I have always been interested in learning. When it came to picking which subject I wanted to learn I felt that choosing Flash would best suit me, as from researching different job advertisements the adverts that I chose you needed to have knowledge of Flash. I feel that learning Flash will also improve my design skills as there is lots of creative work to do when learning Flash which will help me to make improvements to my design skills. To complete this assignment I have researched lots websites to find out what materials I could use to achieve my goals for this assignment. I will use a wide range of resources like books and the internet which will allow me to start from the begin learning the basics of Flash.

We also need to make a portfolio of the work we have produced on the course. This is something that I will be starting to get ready as I will need to choose which work will need to go onto the website. I will then need to build my portfolio which I will use the skills that I have learnt from other assignment such as XHTML and CSS will help me to do my website.
In this assignment we also have to do a 45 minuet presentation about are portfolio which will show my journey through the 2 years on the course. I am really nervous about this presentation as I am not really that confident when it comes to presenting presentations. Even though I have gained more confidence from doing other presentation on the course. I still don’t really feel that confident at doing a presentation in front of quit a few people. I will need to make sure that I manage my time so that I will have plenty of time to prepare and practice the presentation so that I know exactly what I am doing.

Tuesday 13 January 2009

Flash Resources

10 Flash Resources

Flash 5 f/x and design

Contains lots of fundamental elements of Flash.

Adobe Flash CS3 Professional How-Tos:100 Essential Techniques

Arange of essential elements to Flash.

http://www.entheosweb.com/Flash/default.asp

Tutorials for basic Flash and Actionscript resources.

http://www.w3schools.com/Flash/default.asp

Arange of different Flash techniques and elements.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/

Has arange of different tutorials and tips.

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash/index.htm

Arange of Flash tutorials and effects.

http://www.actionscript.org/

Arange of basic to advanced Actionscript.

http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/

Arange of Flash and Actionscript tutorials.

http://www.flashperfection.com/

A wide range of lastest Flash tutorials.

http://tutorialoutpost.com/tutorials/flash

Arange of simple Flash tutorials.