Piracy Website

This in a screenshot of my wesbtie design. In order to make my website interactive I have the four images just in an outline. When the mouse is hovered over the image for the user to click on the image will be slightly changed. They all change to colour and are enlarged the treasure chest has treasure inside it when the user hovers over it. The four images are all pirate themed:

A map, a skull, a pirate ship and a treasure chest.

When the user clicks on the image they will be taken to the relevant topic. (consequences of piracy/ alternatives/what the law says etc.)

There is a small amount of text on the homapage just to tell users the purpose of the site and how to navigate their way round.

Pirate websites

I've been doing some research on pirate websites and websites on piracy. These are some that i have found:

The colours used on these websites will be useful for designing mine website on digital piracy.

3 Week Simulated Client Project

Our brief for the next three weeks is to produce a short multimedia piece that informs about or illustrates Digital Piracy. When I think about Digital Piracy i think of the younger generation, which is what my target audience is going to be. It is mainly younger people downloading illegally on the internet things like Music, films, T.V episodes and software.

I am going to produce a website that informs people on the consequences of digital piracy and the different forms of copyright. My website is going to be informative but i want to try and make it as exciting as possible to look at so the user can engage with the site. A page just full of text stating the consequences of illegal downloading will be boring to look at and to read. The websites that i have come across in researching existing digital piracy websites are all 100% informative and just consisting of text.

Whilst is am aware that the website needs to get across as much information as possible on the subject I plan to come up with a design that limits huge blocks of text at once so the user stays on the website.

Work Experience

Throughout Some of September I have been doing some Work Experience in a Graphic Design and Web Design company close to where I live. It is a small design company that works in corporate identity, printed literature (illustrations, photography etc) and web design. They work for companies of all sizes.

I found the work experience there very useful, whilst i was continuing using my existing skills i became more confident in using a few programmes that i only knew basics on ( Illustrator especially).

Heston Blumenthal - The Fat Duck

I was also really impressed with this website. I think it is really clean and neatly put together. All the information is provided that the user will need and it presented in a way that is easy to find.

The part of the website that really caught my eye though was the "About The Fat Duck" section. You use the mouse to interact with the page and navigate your way around. It is the only part of the website that is interactive in this way. All the other pages are purely for information uses. When navigating your way round the "about the fat duck" pages you can find out how Heston Blumenthal manages to get the senses for his food right. For example he explains how he gets his Touch, Smell, Taste and Look of the food perfect.

http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/

Get Him To The Greek

The other day i went to see Get him to the Greek at the cinema, I thought the film was pretty funny and came home and looked the film up on the Internet as there were so many famous people in it i wanted to see what other films i had recognised them from. I got taken to the get him to the Greek website and was really impressed with it.

From the second you type the website in the site becomes interactive. First there is a page with different options for the user to explore. When the user goes to "Enter Site" as the page is loading and there is a countdown to the Performance your mouse becomes an aeroplane. When the page has loaded you can pick from more things to do.

You can pick from the places that 'Aldous Snow' and 'Aaron Green' went to when trying to get to LA such as London, New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. When the user clicks on each place there are different interactive things going on. For example in London you can watch videos and in New York you can find out about cast and crew and the plot etc.

http://gethimtothegreekmovie.co.uk/

Skittles - Experience The Rainbow :)

I found the Skittles website on the FWA and thought it was really good. I like the design they have gone with displaying different random facts about skittles. They have a part on the website with two sumo wrestlers trying to get people to follow skittles on facebook and twitter. I liked this way to get people to look at the facebook and twitter pages rather than just having the symbols - which they also have at the top of the page

incase the user does not view all the content.

There is endless content on the skittles website. It is the sort of website that you would go back to to see more of as there is so much to do and read on one vi

sit.

I also like the three little facebook, twitter and features widgets that are on the page at all times. As the mouse goes over the symbol there is a small but effective flash element to show the user that they can click on it.

By Big Spaceship.

http://www.skittles.com/

Jean Paul Gaultier Website

I came across this website which I thought was quite interesting. I like the flash elements that they have incoorporated into the website. As you choose the different areas to view you are directed through an old mansion. When looking at the perfumes you can click on the concierge bell and i particularly like how the hands pop up and you can ask for help on the website if you cant find something or have questions. I think that the navigation could do with being more obvious as it took me a while to find the back button to get back to the index.

http://www.jeanpaulgaultier.com/

YUMI - Group Project

Yumi Logo:For the group project on YUMI I will be putting most of my posts on the shared blog :

http://ukyumidesign.blogspot.com/

YUMI

For our group project, our client is an ice cream parlour in Hyson Green, Nottingham. It was set up by a Student at Notthingham Trent studying Interior Architecture.

On Wednesday we had a meeting and took photos of the different things available in the shop along with the interior. We are now waiting for the content off the client as all that is available for customers at the moment is the facebook group.:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=156319783380

These are two reviews on the Parlour:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/entertainmentnews/Food-focus-Yumi-Ice-Cream-Parlour-Hyson-Green/article-1311877-detail/article.html

http://alanadale.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/hyson-green-saturday-night-and-sundae-morning/

Hennie Haworth

Hennie Haworth is a designer i came across when looking at an Christmas advent calender website in December, that i posted on my blog back then. Hennie Haworth is an Freelance Illustrator. I really liked the website, especially the navigation how different pens appear over the text the mouse hovers on.

http://www.henniehaworth.co.uk/

More Pages

I will be keeping the same background images throught all 5 pages of the website, these are two of the ideas for the biography and the gallery. The Biography will just be put together in Dreamweaver but the gallery i plan to do as one of my flash elements. Along the bottom is a thumbnail film strip where there are 6 diferent topics to choose to view:

• Digital
• Hospital
• Medium Format
• Large Format
• 35mm film
• Goose Club

Once the topic has been selceted a number of images from that project or topic will come up in a box above the thumbnails. I want to somehow explain some of the images and what the topic is about but have not yet decided how to do so.

Navigation

Contact:


Photography:

Biography:
These are some of the symbols that i will put on the desk for the user to click on, I put these together in photoshop but will import them to flash to experiment with the text and making teh images bigger when the mouse goes over it.

Final Ideas

I have decided to change my design so it is of an artist looking at their desk. I prefer the older looking desk to the grey one. I have decided that as the mouse hovers over the different topics the poloriod/journal/photoframe will get bigger so the user knows to click on it. This will be done in flash.

Ideas for Website

Idea 1:

This idea, when the mouse hovers over the text for, biography, contact, photography and journal the text will change colour or light up to become more obvious. My idea with this design was to give the user a taster of what Victorias work is like from a range of different project she has done.

Idea 2:

I prefer this idea as from looking at existing photographer and artists websites they are not too complicated as it would take the attention away from the work. This idea is that the image in the middle will be changing through about 5 different images, probably all connected from the same project. The text, similarly to the first idea will light up in a different colour when the mouse is hovered over it.

More designers websites

Cindy Sherman Website:


Cindy Sherman's Website is different to the others. I really like the homepage with all the overlapping pictures of her and background of pictures she has taken but once you click to go into the other links of the website i think it is very boring. The layout for the biography is pages of writing which is very overwhelming and the links to look at her artwork is not set out very well either.

http://www.cindysherman.com/index.php


Matteo Basile Website:


Matteo Basile's website is quite similar to the one of Steve Schofield in how the images are displayed in the gallery and how they are navigated. I much prefer this way of presenting someones art work.


http://www.matteobasile.com/index/

Steve Schofield

I decided to do some research on some of the designers that my friend who I am making the website for is inspired by. I particularly liked the website for Steve Schofield, his website is clean and neatly set out. I like how the images are set out in a thumbnail strip but keep moving so all the pictures can be seen unless you pause it.

Steve Schofield's images range from humorous images of Sci-fi costumers in their own homes, to portraits of leading politicians, actors and musicians. In 2007 The Times named him as one of five artists to watch. His work has won numerous awards, and has been exhibited in galleries in the UK (including the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographers' Gallery), the USA and Europe. He has had a number of solo shows of his personal work and has work in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. He lives in London with his wife Lesley and 10 year old son Louis.

http://www.steveschofield.co.uk/portfolio%20gallery%20grey/portfolio.html

Design Exercise 14: Social Network Integration

For the website i am creating for an artist I have decided to include Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. They seem the most relevant for mt artists work so people can follow her on social networking sites. Flickr is a social networking site where you can upload photos and videos for free and share them with your followers, you can also edit the photographs, get rid of red eye, crop a photo, or get creative with fonts and effects! Most of the work that I will be uploading to the site will be photographs of my artists work. I have decided to include twitter and facebook for the same reasons that people can follow the artist easily and find out more information on the artist.

These are some examples of websites with links to social networking sites on them. On Gordon Ramsays page he has provided a link to follow him on twitter but Britney Spears has links for all facebook, Twitter, MySpace and youtube. On Gordon Ramsays page he has made the link keeping the blue colour and the twitter symbol which makes the association alot clearer but on Britney Spears' page she has kept them all as individual pink tabs at the top of her page.

Design Exercise 13: Flash Banner

Scenario: you work for a web design company that had been commissioned to develop a new campaign for your mobile phone. Create a simple flash animation taht links to a main product website and is to be deployed across a variety of websites. 6-8 separate sections that include animation and interaction. Research your phone and its current advertisement and build a new campaign banner.



This is the banner used on the blackberry website, It consists of 5 animations, all similar but stating different reasons to buy the blackberry.






The phone that i am going to advertise is the blackberry bold 9000, this is some of the information i found on the website:

The BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 smartphone embodies elegant design — without sacrificing the features or functionality you expect from a premium smartphone.

Available Features:

• Camera (2.0 MP)
• Built-in GPS
• Media Player
• Video Recording
• BlackBerry® Maps
• Wireless Email
• Organiser
• Browser
• Phone
• Corporate Data Access
• SMS/MMS
• Wi-Fi® support

This is a blackberry advert on tv

Paiko - Design Exercise 12

This is a German designers porfolio. I really like the layout and colour scheme of this website. The background looks proffessional and tidy keeping the same design throughout the website on all five pages. The font colour is constant throughout the design but has varied his font style when necessary making titles much bolder and larger.


The portfolio page is clearly layed out and labeled. The different design projects have been separated into differnet sections making it easy for people to find what they are looking for. I like the image gallery options - the user has the option to view more information on the images that they like keeping the page tidy.

The navigation is in English but that is all. Quite difficult for me to understand what the designer is describing on each page but the text seems to be the right amount for the user and there is more available in the content link if people are more interested in the designs.

I like the spacing that this designer has used on his webpages as he has included a good amount of images with text without making the user feel overwhelmed with too much to look at. I would use this sort of layout in one of my designs in the future.

http://paiko.de/index.php

Navigation...

I have been experimenting on different designs what colour to change my navigation to. I am definatly going to change the text to the same as the rest of the page which is Bradley hang ITC but i think i am going to change the colour to a cream/white as the red and purple seem too dark.

altered index page

By making the eat, drink, relax, enjoy title smaller the header with homemade will be more obvious.

Alterations to final design

This is the outcome of my index page. Alterations that i want to make are:

• Footer needs to tie in more with the design


• Text needs to be consistant throughout the page (navigation and footer is a different font to the main text)


• Navigation - possibly change the colour of text or background colour. Change white to a cream - look at colour wheel


• The eat, drink, relax, enjoy title needs to be smaller as it is fighting with the title for the first thing you see. Could move it to underneath the title in a smaller size or leave it where it is but just decrease the size.

On the menu, eveing info and contact info thet footer does not tie in atall and i think it could do with some more images or less text as its too overwhelming.