Maxine PuhipuhiDigital media

2014Online Portfolio

Research

During my research I found the below image. This website was my inspiration for the way I laid mine out. It has a ribbon menu down the side instead of across the top, which I quite liked. It was unique and more interesting than regular website menus. I also liked how the image went behind the menu ribbon because it created a three-dimensional feel which again added interest. I like the grey and earth tones used throughout the website. This colour scheme looks professional but soft and nice. The website was easy to navigate. The images were the main focus of this website, as the purpose was to show them off. This website had a nice overall visual appeal.

Obrien,C (1014).Christina Obrien Photography. Retrieved from http://cobrienphoto.com/

My Process/WorkI started by drawing up some mockups of what my website could look like. I drew this one and I liked it the best out of all of my mockups. It has a ribbon down the side like the website I found in my research. I have an image in the middle, which is quite large. This is the main focus of my website. It also has a banner across the top which has my name. I will put this in a script-type font, because I think it makes it look more authentic.

Then I made a mockup in Photoshop of what my website would look like. I have changed it a little bit between the original sketch and this mockup. I’ve lost the possibility of a logo in the top left corner, and just left that as part of the title banner. I have incorporated an earthy-brown colour scheme to my website, because I like those tones and think they work nicely together. I also think it gives the page a richer, warmer feel.

I started using Webydo to make my website. I used the background feature to set the base colour for my website. I then built the shapes of the banner and menu ribbon over the top of that. I placed many rulers as guidelines for where my information was going to go. I had difficulty with the order of the shapes, because I could not send some of them forwards or back-wards. I resolved this by moving the footer.

I managed to save time and found out that you could make things appear on all pages of the website. So I did this with all the coloured box-es and the menu. I had a bit of trouble resizing the gallery to make it fit my photos. I ended up changing the way my gallery looked from my mockup, to make it easier on Webydo.

EvaluationUsing Webydo, I have created a website based off my PhotoShop design. I think that this website is similar to my original design, and that it still has all the key features, with slightly greater changes on the gallery page to enable myself to use the gallery display in Webydo. Whilst making my website, there were a few glitches and crashes of Webydo, but overall I am happy with the result. Some of the problems I had with Webydo includ-ed disappearance of some information, unwelcome movement of various items on my Webydo site, and gen-eral lack of familiarity with the website made it difficult to use. To get past this, I used video tutorials to teach myself how to use Webydo effectively, but a lot of the tutorials still didn’t answer what I needed to know. The colour scheme I used for my website is warm and inviting, while also subtle and professional. My layout is simple but effective in achieving the things that I wanted my website to do. I used a script-type font for the website because it is professional and elegant, and looks clean and authentic. The photo I chose for the home page of the website is one that I have taken this year. I chose this photo because it is black and white, which does not clash too much with the colour scheme. It is also an interesting and tasteful photo, and it is not too confronting. My about page is short and sweet. I didn’t want to include excessive or irrelevant information, because I didn’t want to take away from the images, which is what the website is for. Likewise, the contact page is simple and to the point. It contains three different ways to get a hold of me - email, phone and fa-cebook - which I think is more than enough. There is a direct link to my facebook page. The gallery is the main focus of the website, as it showcases my images. The viewer can manually scroll through the images by using the arrows at either side of the images, but the photos are also on an automatic loop, so manual scroll-ing is not necessary. The gallery contains a few images from different parts of this year’s courses, including some photography work and some design, showcasing my work. Therefore, this website functions as a visual portfolio of work I have done this year quite effectively, as I have focussed the website to put as much empha-sis on the images as possible.