I tried and tested true form "its all gone 'orribly wrong guv"

Using my designs I've created a one of many backgrounds for my site. But then I ran into problems. My background is set to 800x600 (to be honest it should be a little smaller to allow for the menu and scroll bars of the web browser, but that's by the by) and in 800x600 resolution it looks great! but the thing is at higher resolutions (namely 1280x1024 which is what my machine is set at) it just looks odd, like its floating in a sea of white.



I tried to give my background a border but it still looked crap.



I could fix the screen size but as stated here by some more forum monkeys, it just plain rude to do that!

No, i need to remember what i have learned from white graphics and stick to it. My problem was that I wanted white space, but instead I filled it with texture. Back to the drawing board and keep it simple stupid!

tj -x-

Optimization

I'm creating a website that I want people to view on most computers, so i've got to set my pages at a reasonable screen size which is 800x600pi as stated here by some random forum monkeys... everyone say "thanks" to the monkeys.

I could optimize the the site to be viewed by more tech savy people such as graphic designers and web developers by basing my site around 1024x800pi or even 1280x1024, in fact it would probably make sense as they're my target audience, but just in case, (and so that my technophobe grandmother can have a gander) I'm going to go with tiny-weeny 800x600 o-vision. I've designed it all on paper (see the portfolio) and gone through a few interface designs to streamline it as per the advice given to me by mr Nielsen. I even scrapped an animation (le gasp!) that i was going to use as a menu vehicle, because I thought it was just to damn clunky and pretentious.



I've also found a way of creating animated .gifs in after effects by exporting the file as a quicktime move then importing that file into image ready and explicitly editing the frames to make it less clunky. (its got something to do with how AE works in frames and .gifs work in jiffies which confuses things when you export gifs directly out of AE)

this was my test (you have to click on it to see it move)



tj -x-

Design for interateraction

I picked up 'Design for interaction - user friendly graphics' by Lisa Baggerman, to get some info on user interfaces.

The books alittle dated, for instance it states that the itch website is revolutionary in that its one of the only website to use flash shockwave... every website and their mothers uses flash now! in fact people are becoming sick of flash that a html retro movement is surfacing!

aside from that it has a few useful tidbits:

"good interface design is about getting your user form point A to point B"

"There are two enterprises that refer to their customers as "users" & one of the is illegal" - Michael Hammer

"Rules of interface design:
1. Ease of learning
2. Efficiency of use
3. Memorability
4. Minimize errors
5. Satisfy the user

Interface designs deadly sins
- stepping into the design and saying "if i can use it everyone can" - this is wrong.
- Nielsen

"Designers should give up control and let the user construct their own experience."

"Do not over design -keep the design independent of any superfluous design elements, keep the focus on the function. - In interface design all elements should have a purpose."

"USER TESTING!"

"The least flexible component of any system is the user" -lowell jag Arther

"If the user can't make sense of the interface, then they'll go somewhere they can."

With this in mind i really need to streamline my design. First and foremost my site is a promotional site so contact details are paramount.

Ideally i'd like to create a site that offers entertainment, valuable content and pleasure for its visitors.

tj -x-

The webpage - Less is more, white graphics

My first port of call is to design a website, a digital portfolio of my work. This enables any potential employer to access my portfolio without the baggage.

I've been looking at a few portfolio websites and in my opinion the successful ones are very easy to navigate with minimal bells and whistles, getting straight to the point, whilst utilising alot of white space.


sam winston
Nicholas saunders

With this in mind I picked up a book called 'white graphics - The power of white in graphic design' by gail deilbler finke.

At first it may look like a neo nazi supremacist design manifesto - but its not. Armed with this i've created a mood board.

Key thing that I picked out form the book are:

"Visual communication is as much about taking away as it is putting in"

"A nice chunk of white space is one of the most comforting respites from the overloaded hyperactive imagery being created in print and interactive media today."

"Less is more"

"Combining a white sheet or other item with saturated colour. plain white paper on a dark folder, a white label on a dark wine bottle, a white wrap on a coloured book. - this goes to show white can become part of the over all graphic design not just canvass to hold it."

tj -x-

Previuosly on promotion...

So my blogs a few weeks late, that doesn't mean to say i've been totally idle with this project... just mostly idle.

I've Decided that I want to do my work experience within a interactive design group such as:

Digit london
All of us
heritage-multimedia

When I say interactive I don't mean websites, I'm talking about the type of interactive installations you see in the science museum for instance. My reason for wanting to work for these companies is not so much that I really want to go into this type of design, but more that I think it would be really fun and interesting to do a work experience in this type of company. It would definately keep my interest more than say working on magazine layouts day in, day out.

All of these companies are feasible for me as two are based in london, and i used to live in Watford, so I know plenty of places I can crash for the duration, and Heritage is based in beeston, which is the next train stop from nottingham.

I've got in contact with them all and they all offer placements, I've even spoken directly to sanky from All of us at the Eye forum (co-incidentally the eye forum was on education in design and how it relates to professional practice, so it was very relevant to this project). All the companies asked me to send some of my work. So now i need promotional material.

tj -x-