Tutorial

1) Homepage- image sizes (for smooth JQuery) when slices less than 250K

2) About Me- steer away from photographs, can maybe use drawing of self or a photo of me in my working environment

3) Overview of each topic replacing welcome intro- short description of why passionate about graphics/illustration/print intro rather than same text from homepage

4) Use live text rather than an image of text otherwise might not be legible and will take ages to load- use default fonts!

5) Think about point size for smaller monitor screens

6) Portfolio- if using slideshow, include play/pause button so viewer has choice of taking their time looking at work

7) Use title and description of work as captions

8) Tabs- grey box surrounding doesn’t fit with the style of the rest of the website

9) Cross browser- research how website might look on other browsers, test on Adobe Browser Labs

10) FTP- to upload all pages and image and css/Jquery

11) HTML contact form rather than including email address- efficient, professional and secure- design a ‘mail to’ button

12) Links- file names must have no spaces for these to work

Overall, website works well and represents me well. Good consistent styling of website and suitable choice of colours.

Get in Touch Button and Download CV Button:

Further Development

Other things to think about:

1) First image of your work needs to be strong

2) Facebook like button?

3) Use of Galleria

4) Email address on page- is this really necessary? Maybe just use a form instead of providing contact details

5) Insert email address as image if using it on website so people can’t spam

6) Use metatags for google searches

7) Include CV!

8) Contact page needs to be engaging too because someone could land on this page first accidently

9) Use of drop down menu so easy navigation

10) Include “Copyright Victoria Kwan”

11) Portfolio is the most important, put first in navigation bar

12) Text needs to use websafe colour

13) Photos of self not important, don’t want people to judge you on your looks

Interim Critique

This went well though there were a few minor adjustments I needed to make. My branding worked well and represented me and my work well. The navigation was said to be simple and clear and the logo sat well in the top right hand corner.

Things I need to think about:

1) Text too greenà use grey for copy text instead?

2) Move contact up so more visible and easy to navigate.

3) In white space under logo have static bio

More Scamping

So, with my advice about my layouts I went back to drawing out scamps of how I could better my ideas. I included the new logo and icons and tried making the navigation more attractive and easy to use. Another layout alteration I looked at was to minus the amount of negative space and maximise the area where I was going to showcase my work.

Logo and Icons

After receiving advice about my logo from the last tutorial I figured it was time to take a look at this part of my branding because it would be a vital image that would represent me and my work. I decided to go for the name ‘yeewah’ in the end. It is my Chinese name, but it has a design-like sense to it because of the weird combinations of letters used and the way it sounds when said out loud. I wanted to keep the summery green (pantone 276C) because I felt this represented my personality of being happy and friendly quite well, but not too feminine. I tried to incorporate some sort of pattern into the logo which could be used throughout the website so to link thelogo to the layout of the page (ie. The dotted green line).

In addition to my logo I also designed my own icons to go with my quirky style. These include the facebook icon, blogger icon and contact information icons. I also have the idea of making the information icons interactive, like the door of the house opening or the phone ringing, but I’ll get round to that if I have time.

Tutorial

So, the first tutorial since starting this project, I was pretty confident this time around because I felt like I actually considered my layouts well after numerous scamping sessions. Things that came up about my ideas were:

1) Need to think about columns, grids and how JQuery would fit into my layout (is. The simpler the better)

2) Don’t use the word ‘livebriefs’ because it suggest amateur or being a student which is not what we want. Want to come across as professional and motivated to find jobs.

3) Use ‘yeewahkwan’ instead of ‘Vix’ for logo because otherwise it sounds too casual like a secondary school nicknameà not professional.

4) Layout is ok, but play around with it a bit more.

5) Look at my colour palette and logo.

6) Too much white space, utilize space better and use it to showcase your work in the best possible way.

Initial Ideas

I began drawing out scamps of initial ideas which just came to mind after researching the importance of navigation. A lot of ideas came out of just random scamping and I felt this was a good starting point from which to pick and develop the ideas with the most potential. Hurrah for manic scamping!

I translated the best designs onto the computer using Photoshop to see which layout realistically worked the best. I started out with looking the homepage first because I felt this was probably the more important page of my website because it would be the first page a viewer would comeacross when visiting my site, thus it would give them the first impression.

For this project I wanted to create my own typeface to represent myself. This would be a massive challenge but also a very rewarding and meaningful one because it would brand me as a person and designer.