DUA Collection

http://www.dua-collection.com/

Idea

The below idea is an initial one, I may choose to go down this route or not.


I want to create a page of my website which is somewhat different to the rest of the layout, this will be in the form of an interactive world map. I imagine a flat outline of the world map which has each area that I have visited in a different colour so that the viewer can distinguish between them. When the viewer selects a particular part of the map, they will be taken to the photographs that I took in that particular part fo the world. Below are some rough ideas that I have found whilst researching in the Web Design Index book by The Pepin Press.

http://www.oqueeufiznasferias.com.br/

Not Well Designed Web Page

Below are links and photographs of websites that I think are not so well designed and designs that I dont like.

http://www.exactitudes.com/index.php?/series/all/139/5

The above link is from a website, there are several things that I dislike about the navigation and style of it. The first one of these dislikes is that there is no obvious way of seeing the next image in the horizontal scrolling screen. This website is similar to how my own will be designed because of the horizontal layout. Also, when hovering my mouse over the next image in the series, the cursor disappears/ goes out of vision. This issue is very annoying and really put me off the website, although I did love the work! 
The website could do with some re-designing in order to create a more user friendly interaction, the navigation that I talked about above especially. Below are some screen shots of the website.

Well Designed Web Page

Below are links and photographs of websites that I think are well designed and designs that I like and have enjoyed interacting with.

- http://www.y-oh.co.uk/

The above link is very similar to that which my own website will look like...

Proposal/ Research

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:

·      http://www.jbennettfitts.com/index.php

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.

·      http://www.johnangerson.com/

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.

·      http://www.designbyface.com/

·      http://www.americanapparel.net/

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.

·      http://www.jasonnocito.com/

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

About This Data

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.

New Brief- Initial Thoughts

So, yesterday I was given a new brief which in summary is to produce a website for my own self promotion. It will help me to show potential clients my work on a broad scale as I intend to show each style of my photography practice on the site.

During the briefing/ presentation I wrote down notes about everything that came into my mind, be it a design feature or something not to do, these are listen below from my notes.

• Keep the flow seamless
• Use of fading
• Site should be easy for the user to use
• Contact details up all of the time (at the bottom of the page)
• Keep no information below the "fold"
• Keep the layout simple/ minimalistic
• Gather inspiration from my favourite photographers/ practitioners web-pages
• Dont have an opening page, that you have to click to enter
• Have a brief 'ethos' about myself and my work at the bottom of each page
• Make sure that the user knows which pages they have clicked/ visited during the interaction with the web-page
• I DONT want sound!
• Use grids effectively
• Check the difference between serif and san-serif fonts
• Possibly a page with my CV on
• Maybe have a photograph of mine as the background for the whole site (would have to be fairly minimal/ plain?)
• Got to be able to add on other projects to the web-site for later in my career
• For my Travelling photographs I could have a world map where the user has to interact with with the page to view the set of images from that particular part of the world
• Need a good sub navigation system
• Make sure I produce a series of mock flow charts, these will help me to gather inspiration/ ideas
• Remember photographic websites can be some of the easiest websites to make
• Remember, nothing should be more than 2 clicks away