Had a workshop on web design, more specifically content and pages and what exactly we would try to communicate through a website.
We listed the info and content that we would incorporate on our site as a graphic designer. Listing content in terms of pages.
I decided I would have:
HOME / PROJECTS - Selection of work, thumbnails which link to devoted project pages.
ABOUT - Info about me, where I'm based and possible specialisms and approach to design
CONTACT - Address, contact details and other websites you can find me on
The idea behind this is the home page, the first page you land on is the projects page. So the first thing you'd see is my work, and then you can choose to find out more about me if you want. So i'm judged by my work and not my name and where I'm from.
As a group we discussed possible pages which could be added and these were pages such as SHOP, FAQ's, CV, TESTIMONIALS, QUOTES, BLOG, CLIENTS
Each of these can obviously blend into other pages, For example Clients could easily be added to an About page or wherever makes sense but for me personally at this point in time I'd want my website to focus solely on my work. I wouldn't want to share much information apart from my name and how you can get hold of me and where I'm based.
I don't want to give information such as what qualifications I've got, what grades and what school I went to as I don't want people to make pre-judgements about me and my work. I could have rubbish grades in school but if my work's good, my work's good. That was the idea anyway!
We then sketched up 'scamps' (if thats how you spell it) of just out personal website homepage.
At first I found this really difficult as it's such a personal website, I could spend weeks months and years considering everything, but I just got an idea out and it was this...
The basic concept is the homepage is the portfolio page, each project in the portfolio is a thumbnail in a grid. Once you roll over you have a rollover overlay, which is the colour C0 M99 Y69 K0. A kind of coral red.
Once you click on a project, it doesn't go to a seperate page, it actually in real-time would bring up the project heading, images and information underneath the grid of thumbnails and it would automatically scroll down perfectly so the heading is at the top of your screen and the effect is the same as going to a separate page anyway, the only difference is if you scroll up you can click on a different project and the same transition happens again.
I also had an alternate idea on the right on the design sheet which is a shape coding system where each specialism in graphic design is split up in shapes. For example Branding and Identity stuff would be the blue square thumbnails, Packaging projects are the red triangles. Once clicked the transition is the same. I thought it was a nice touch rather than a more broken page linking system where you'd click on a project, and then it would take you to a separate project page - to go to a new project you click BACK or click on PORTFOLIO again, this way you'd simply scroll back up and take your pick.
MINI CRIT FEEDBACK:
- Looks smooth and easy to use
- Clean
- Scrolling back up could get tedious
- Slightly confusing, takes a while to understand
- I wouldn't put a client list on the homepage
- Good use of shapes, interactivity
- Like the simplicity of the page title. Perhaps have your surname, though
- Simplicity
- Content given space to breathe
- Shape layer masks not something I've seen before
- Not sure how successful changing bg would be
- Automatic scrolling takes control away and can be annoying
- Nice idea categorising portfolio work into a shape coded system
- Clear, simple neat layout
- Like the scroll down system. Could work in a professional manner
- The user might not notice that the description appears below, might not know to scroll down, unless this is forced, which decreases usability
- I like the idea of having the boxes, something I want to adopt.
- Info graphics idea I really think would work.
- However, would the work have a light shade of colour over the top
The main consistent issue was that some people could be annoyed by the website moving you around itself, and feel they're not in control. But you could argue it's just the same as waiting for a page to load, instead it just scrolls down for you instantly. Scrolling back up to go to another project would be the same as scrolling back up a page to hit the navigation menu anyway but that's just my opinion! It has it's pro's and con's definitely and I'll definitely consider this and fine-tune or possibly have the system implemented in a different way.
I think I might go ahead and make a mock-up now that I'm thinking about this just to visualise how it may look
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