I intend to design a self-promotion website which showcases my different photographic styles and which outlines what I am able to do for clients. I will create a website which is easy to use and one that reflects my own personality whilst most importantly being different to any other in order to capture the viewers attention.
I will use the website to attract a wide audience of potential future ecommerce clients. The clients that I am aiming to appeal to include fashion/design magazines, travel magazines, advertising companies, independent brands and art exhibitors. My work is spread across many areas of the photograph industry and will appeal to many different audiences, which will have to be considered throughout the design process.
My online presence will assist and help me to promote myself as an up and coming photographer and will play a large part throughout my career by attracting and informing clients.
Aims & Objectives:
· To create a website that will showcase my work to future clients/ employees
· To create an easily updateable online portfolio
· To show my online presence in a unique website
· To successfully achieve an effective balance between corporate and art
I have a wide target audience for the website due to having vast photographic interests, styles and skills.
Rationale: I intend to design a unique website that immediately appeals to my previously stated wide target audience due to the fact that there are a huge amount of competitors on the web. I want my website to look considered so that the audience will feel a sense of professionalism. Aesthetically I want to create a minimal website because my primary target audience will be of a commercial background. Through research I have come to see that most commercial web pages seem to be slick and basic in terms of composition whilst still be very informative and functional. I intend to create a consistent style/ fold that allows the viewer to gather information from my web site without being distracted by changes which could cause the individual to use another website, other than my own. I want to have a part of the website grid that shows information about myself as well as contact information so that if the viewer wanted to contact me or find out about my work, the information is available on each page.
Web References:
This website is similar to that I intend to produce for myself due to the minimal basic look. I was initially drawn to the website due to the thumbnail that I saw on the website ‘site inspire’, the white background successfully made the index page image stand out.
The webpage is easy to navigate around and the minimal layout causes you to focus on the image, this is the second thing that I looked at after the name of the practitioner. The focus stays on the image for the most part of the interaction with the website, this is what I am interested in because it is one of the most important aspects of the website.
The navigation of the website is simple and it uses ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons when going to the next image in the series. A separate menu appears below the usual options when you click ‘work’ this works however I would prefer a menu to drop down from below the ‘work’ button.
Overall the website is very clean and minimal, it is effective in putting across examples of the practitioners work and looks professional enough to attract a wide target audience.
Again I clicked on this website because it looked to have all of the characteristics that I was looking for, from the thumbnail. When I entered navigated to the index page of the website I realized that there was a massive thing which let the layout down, there was only a very small gap between the top of the information and the search bar on my web browser. I subconsciously started to scroll up the page that was when I realized that there was no more white space. It looked wrong to me because I wasn’t used to it and I felt myself looking the photograph and wondering if there was more of the photograph above. Overall, I dislike the layout of this and will take it into consideration with the design of my website.
This website was really eye-catching for myself, this is because it uses a similar layout/ style as one of my most used websites, American Apparel Clothing Company. The below image shows a screenshot from the ‘designbyface’ website, whereas the above image shows a screenshot from one of my most used sites which incorporates a similar look to the below website.
American apparels website is similar to the ‘designbyface’ website because of the font used and the minimal look that is apparent.
The ‘designbyface’ website uses bold well thought about single words which the user has to click on in order to see what the work means, this gives a sense of mystery or causes one to question what the next page could show.
The above website is different to many that I have looked at whilst researching, it is primarily a photographers website which showcases each of his separate series of photographs. The thing that initial drew me to the website is that instead of having to choose from an index page where to go next, the design takes you straight to a page with different thumbnails for the user to click which will show each series of photographs. This design is straight to the point and I can imagine this layout appeals to the viewers.
There is an interesting loading icon that appears when an image is loading or when you change page, this indicates to the user that something is loading and if the information arrives in time, the user will continue to be interested in the website.
As with other website that have interested me, the use of a white background is something that this design uses well. The contrast between the color in the photographs and the plain background make the image stand out and demand the viewer’s attention.
One thing that I dislike about the website or something that I would change about the design is the fact that the photographers name is not prominent enough, I believe it would be more appealing if the viewer could clearly see the practitioners name without scanning for it.
Overall the design is practical and slick which twinned with the easy orientation around the website makes a successful self-promotion photographers website that I would happily revisit.
Key Words:
Navigation, Ease, Different, Unique, Considered, Quality, Updateable, Fun, Informative, Consistent, Initial Impressions, Professional, Promotional, Clean, Aesthetically Pleasing, Focus, To The Point, Appropriate, Current, Theme, Reoccurring, Logical, Interesting, Positive, Contrasting, Minimal, Corporate, Art, Balance, Innovative, Eye Catching, Ecommerce.
BBC/ Neilsen Top 100 Websites
The data used to generate the interactive treemap visualisation were collected by the Nielsen company and covers the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, US and Australia. The figures represent unique users for the month of January 2010.
The categories - such as retail, social networks, search/portal - were defined by the BBC. Because some websites have more than one use, they could fall within more than one category (e.g. Yahoo). However, the treemap only classifies them once.
The maps were produced using the Prefuse Flare software, developed by the University of California Berkeley.
