Projected Website scamps

Final website creation uploaded as a GIF

http://www.grandpas-photos.com/

Here is the site which gave my website creation most of my motivation, I feel these GIFS side by side show it's influence upon my own website and explain my design choices when choosing a one page scrolling website.

FINAL GIF

http://gifmaker.cc/PlayGIFAnimation.php?folder=2014120502JIQuTs9rU9XBEzvgaAiVcl&file=output_rF2FLy.gif

Here is the final version of my website, obviously the site could be larger which would require me finding more images and more descriptions which would take a while but at this stage this site consists of 5 different high resolution photos which each have a very specific description.

The site works perfectly as a PDF and being a single page scrolling site I am unsure if buttons or links are necessary so at this stage the site would not contain any links. I am unsure if this justifies my creation as a website or not, but other sites such as 'Grandpa's photos' don't necessarily require links or buttons but do use them.

Website progression

I am very happy with how my website is coming along. Here are a few screen shots of the stage in which I am at. 

I am very happy with my print after it has been edited and placed over my title image.

I am now considering buttons on my home page and if they are event relevant/where they would take the visitors of the website.

Constantly debating whether the text is over whelming the images which is something I want to avoid, I'm going to have to find a 'happy medium' to solve this.

Type variations 

I had downloaded a typeface called Playfair display unknowing that this typeface was full caps, I had received some criticism that this was illegible and hard to read against the white background.

The fact that the primary reason for my website was to inform people about these historial photographs with my input on how the colouration had changed the images, the typeface is very cruical to convey my information.

I am certain I wish to use a serif typeface as I feel that is the most relevant choice and serif typefaces scream out to me - History, the entire theme behind this site.

For this reason I am now experimenting with web safe serif fonts, Times new roman Bold quite appeals to me. The bold aspect makes the white text legible over the white, monochrome images, something which is vital also. 

Numiko studio visit:

Numiko studio visit

Me and two other students went to Numikos studio, for me, to get an idea of how a studio functions.

We was given a tour by a guy named Colin,

The studio has employed 20 designers, but on this day it only seemed as if around 10 of them were in.

I was surprised how personal and informal the studio was, with the designers having their own personal items on their desks such as lego toys and other novelty items.

We were talked through their Water Aid's Wahoo project and fully explained how the did the entire site, from initial meetings, to budget etc. We were shows the site mocked up in creative adobe software as well as seeing the wire frames. Colin was telling us how the company provided them with the photographs and stock images to use and also a very basic logo which wasn't designed very professionally and a result of this meant that when the logo was opened in software, it was over 50GB in size; this obviously had to be corrected.

We went into the ins and outs of the company and other designers came over to explain things to us, the studio was very laid back and everyone was very friendly and sociable.

We were informed that the junior designers were paid £23,000 a year, a number which impressed me and a figure I would be very happy earning as a graduate job at the age of 21. Colin had told us that

 he didn't go to uni and started design work at age 16.

He compared Numiko to other such companies in Leeds such as 26 and Made by Pie, claiming the industry 26 was  a lot more formal and intensive that Numiko and that the workers there fit more of a 'Mac monkey' role. 

He explained to us how the company had just won a pitch to redesign the Blue cross charity website and that's what they were all working on at that time. They approached the company proposing a new site mapping that would completely change the ease of the site.

We were told how in the last few years internet on phones has massively grown and how that is certain people's only access to the internet are via mobile devices.

We were shown quite a lot of information about web design and wire frames something which relates to our on going project.

Study task OUGD504 - Website optimisation

On the page and off the page factors of Search engine optimisation

http://searchengineland.com/now-updated-the-periodic-table-of-seo-success-factors-162513

Content – the quality of your material 

HTML – elements used to technically create your web pages 

Architecture – elements involved with your overall site 

Links – how links to your content may impact rankings 

Trust – the degree your site seems to be a trustworthy authority 

Social – how social recommendations impact your rankings 

Personal – various ways personalised search results impact your SEO

On the page:

Quality 

Are pages well written and have substantial quality content?

Titles

Do HTML title tags contain keywords relevant to page topics?

Crawl

Can search engines easily 'Crawl' pages on your site?

Research

Have you researched the key words people use to find your content

Off the page:

Quality

Are links from trusted, quality or respected websites?

Trust 

Do links, shares and make other factors

Personal

Locality

History

OUGD504 Search engine optimisation:

Search engine optimisation

More of a concern for web masters who look after the needs of a site on a day to day basis.

It is relevant to us as designers as we can filter the results relating to the content to ensure our sites have the correct viewers.

SEO

Quality content

Ranking websites based on their search terms

Page Authority Checker 

This valuable tool allows you to check multiple elements for up to 10 web pages at a time. Simply enter the exact web pages (not top level domain!) that you wish to analyze. The results will display individual Page Authority as well as the Domain Authority. You’ll also find out the number of Linking Roots Domains in addition to the total number of Links pointing to each page. Finally, the simple Status section will let you know if there are any issues with the Page Authority.

The lower the page/domain authority isn't great, so it is better to get the score higher before you public the site.

This periodic table of SEC success factors dictates the most important factors to consider for a healthy and successful site which people can trust and which bares relevant content.

Very useful to refer to as a check list when creating the site as a graphic designer rather than being a professional or web master.

SEO for startups in under 10 minutes

Google webmaster tool

Preparation for website crit:

Here demonstrate some very basic mock ups of how I would like my website to function. 

The website will contain a simple template which is used for all of the pages with content I wish to display.

The layout of the site is based around the golden rule of thirds which is relatable to my content due to the site focussing around photographs. 

A large image will be displayed inside the parameters of the rules of thirds which will then contain a slider where to viewer of the site can change an image from half B&W and half colour to which ever style of photography they want to see.

Yahoo website mock ups:

We were set a one day responsive task to redesign Yahoos website due to the fact it was massively missing out on visitors as Google was by far the favoured home page for teenagers.

 This was originally a brief set by YCN as part of a competition.

Most people we were working in groups during this one day brief, but I was working alone.

We were informed that the usual target audience for this website was 13-18 year olds so for this reason, this was the age in which I was basing my redesign on.

A vital piece of information which massively effected my design choices was that teenagers visited social network sites in this order:

Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

Plan of action:

I had chosen to re colour the website as I thought the original purple colour was something which I associated with the older generation and other brands such as Monarch airlines using this tint of purple instantly screamed out as something I must change to make more relevant to the audience.

I chose to change the branding out Yahoo's site to a bright pungent lime green as I had done some research and no other social networks sites or generally popular sites to teenagers used this colour scheme and I felt it was a unisex colour which would be pleasing on the eye to my target audience.

Moving on I decided to create some app panels which instantly appears on your Yahoo home page, and when the user receives a facebook notification, the content of this is displayed on their home page and with a simple click of their mouse, the facebook app grows in size to reveal the detailed information. This same transition happens with the Instagram, twitter and youtube function.

The small youtube app allows the user to select a specific song or playlist when the app is opened and allows the user to pause the song or increase the volume when the app tab has been shrunk.

The order of these app tabs is based around the research that teenagers visit facebook then instagram etc and that explains the composition of these tabs.

So far these are the only changes I have implemented on their site, keeping the news content the same as that is Yahoos content and not something for their designer to mess around with, obviously I could attempt to improve the aesthetic of their news, but at this stage I haven't. 

http://issuu.com/ryan_daley/docs/yahoo

Study task 6 - New media theory: The medium and the massage

Find a piece of theoretical knowledge relating to New media

Late 60s books can be relevant despite initially thinking they wouldn't be relevant as they would be informed in the most modern form of new media but, if done well, these books can still be very relatable.

Medium is the message is a book which focuses more around electronics rather than media.

The Medium and the massage

An inventory of effects

Marhsall McLuhan

Quentin Fiore

1967

"The major advances in civilisation are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur"

"Societies shaped more by the media and less by the content of communication"

"Electrical tech fosters and encourages the unification and involvement"

"Our 'Age of anxiety' is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's complex job with yesterday's tools-with yesterdays concepts"