Yo Future!

The last two years seem to have flown by. It feels like only yesterday we were writing the blog for "Where did we come from?" but now I feel a lot more confident than I did back then.

Starting this course the only knowledge of web design was some code, no image manipulation knowledge and how to use Dreamweaver. Any website work I had done for previous courses had been in tables and minor CSS.

One reason for joining this course was wanting to learn Photoshop as I felt that my Image Manipulation knowledge was not as strong as other skills. I have learnt the basics and keep doing tutorials to try and help me improve. I also wanted to learn more CSS because creating websites in tables and cells can be quite limiting and hard to update.

Upon learning CSS I could never seem myself going back to using tables and cells and would try to 'ease' the use of CSS into design companies [future employers] that still use the old methods of web design.

Something else that will help me to create better websites and 'up' my employability is the knowledge of validation and the levels to validate to. Having created all sites to validate to level 1 [either Strict or Transitional in the first website] I think this is a good skill to show employers.

Throughout the course I feel that I have become more of a developer than a designer. I think the change of direction was most visible in the Professional Project where I assumed the role of Developer. I also chose to learn PHP as it would be more of a beneficial skill to have.

Having learnt PHP I now understand how much of an important coding language it is to know. This language can make websites even more updateable with the aid of PHP Include pages [a page that is included into multiple pages and once edited will affect the whole website]. The last website also included content that was taken from a database.

Overall I have learnt a lot more than I have done on previous courses. I think one of the main skills I have developed is not a Technical Skill but more of a Personal Skill. From the iMe assignment [and others] I have now developed the discipline to help me sit down and learn a new skill, which I intend to put to good use.

I am going to continue to learn more of the coding side of Web Design but also want to develop my skills in programs such as Flash, as most Developer jobs seem to ask for this. However this isnt the only reason for wanting to learn it. I have always been fascinated by animated sites and projects and would like to develop the skill to do this myself.

A Digital Request

I have created some screen designs for the FMP if you can drop me some feedback it is most appreciated. Thanks

Design 1
Design 2
Design 3

Some Rough ones

Design 4
Design 5

More can be found here chris-towell.co.uk/a14

Once again thanks

CD3.0

Track Listing

1. Black Lab - This Blood
2. AC/DC - Back to Black
3. Texas - In Demand
4. U2 - New York
5. Nickelback - Too Bad
6. Chemical Brothers featuring The Flaming Lips - The Golden Path
7. Gorillaz - 19/2000 Soul Child Remix
8. Cobra Starship - Snakes On A Plane
9. Propellerheads - Spybreak!
10. HelloGoodbye - Here In Your Arms
11. Stereophonics & Tom Jones - Mama Told Me Not to Come
12. Brad Paisley - Route 66
13. Coldplay - Fix You
14. The Corrs - Summer Sunshine

Screen Design V3

Well after a bit of nudging and slight colouring in the screen design has been edited again. Here is the final screen design, comments are gratefully accepted and thanks in advance for any given.

I am bit stuck whether to go with Final Content Design 1 or 2.

Index Page

Main Content 1

Main Content 2

Portfolio Version 2

Due to a few comments I have made a few changes to th initial screen designs. This time I have added two designs to show what the site will look like with content on it.

Homepage

Content

Screen Design for Portfolio

Here is my 1st version of my Portfolio website. Please click the link to view the PDF. Portfolio Screen design link

I have decided to go mininmalistic with my design as I intend for the work to speak for itself. I have not added all of the measurements yet if you wish to see them I will add the second PDF soon.

Any feedback will be gratefully accepted. Thanks in advance.

Competitive Analysis

Professional Designer - Digital Portfolios

Design
This portfolio is easy to navigate around and I think that the colours work well together. I am not really sure about the Flash header as some of the circles seem to be closer than others. Upon closer inspection this is actually a repeated pattern and they are supposed to be touching in places. I don't really think this works and looks a bit out of place. I can understand why they have chosen the two images as they are a design company based in London but they could have picked some more relevant to design.

The site has a clear and understandable navigation system so the user can click and find what they would expect to find on the page they are navigating to. It is clear that this company offer a lot of services and have a good range of work to show in the 'Our Work' section.

Something else that is evident is that they have a large client list which they display on the Our Work page. I would think this would be more effective if they were a list of links instead of just being a list of words. The companyt could also do to add a space between the name of the client and the red cross as this feels a little compact in places.

Personally I would not think that this is a good idea putting a full list on the website, it does show that they have a large client selection but it might have been a better idea to put a sample list of clients with their best work.

On the portfolio page it has a clean effective layout showing what software was used, tasks performed etc but I would have preferred a bit more information about the project and possible some development examples.

I do prefer this to the Student Portfolio I have found as I feel this is a lot more user friendly, however passing this through a validator showed a higher number of Validation errors than Matt Gibsons Portfolio.

Student Portfolio - Matt Gibson

This website has a varied range of work on including web design, games and photography. Personally I think his website is a bit dark and needs a few brighter colours, I do not agree with the white text on a black background as this will make it hard for some users to read. The blue links make it even harder to read what they say being against a black background.

Using tags as his headers are not a good idea. I think they look a bit out of place and it is more code to add them in.

I do think he has a good layout though and it allows him to show his work effectively. The pages are consitent and he is using CSS to control the layout and presentation of the site but neither pass the W3 Validators and for someone who claims to do this it is a big issue. I have also noticed that one or two pages do not work or are linked up incorrectly.

I think my main issue is with his use of colour and not making it very accessible to other people. Another concern is with the line length, some users will not read long lengths of paragraphs and might find themselves losing there place. If it were a shorter paragraph this may be more manageable as a bigger chunk of text.

It is clear that he is using PHP to help drive his website which is helpful for updating. He can add a new record to the website and it would be updated quite easily.

All in all I think that this could be a good website if changed the colour scheme, mainly the background colour, and made the text a bit more readable.