Brief Two

For the second project I will be using my cousins band as my client. They are a local band called Late of the Pier and are signed to the major record label Parlophone, along with other well known artists such as The Beatles, Coldplay, and Kylie Minogue!

Their current website is very minimal and only consists of a music player which contains all the tracks from their first album. The only other items on the page are links to their MySpace, shop, and the sign-up form for their mailing list.

I personally don't feel the current website does the band justice, and does not fully showcase how innovative and exciting they are. I think this is currently a very important thing for a band as it's the first place potential fans will go when they hear about a band and if they are presented with an extremely minimal website with no news or any real relevant information then it is likely they will leave the website straight away. Therefore I plan to design a website which is exciting and grabs the users attention from the start. I also want it to be interactive and the most important thing for me is that their music is easily accessible.

It is an exciting project for me because it is within the family, yet has the potential to be an international website. If I do a good job it is likely my cousin will decide to swap the website for their current one and this could lead to more work for me.

Check out their music here; http://www.lateofthepier.com/

Things That Are Brown

Things That Are Brown are a small web design company based in Seattle, run by a husband and wife. They create really well layed out websites which are extremely effective and easy to use. Their own personal website very much sums up their style, and alot of the websites they have created follow a very similar layout.


It is very easy to navigate the website and the simple plain background means that attention is not distracted from the main body of information and people focus on what is important. A lot of the website has been created on Photoshop and then put together to creat a really neat and clean feel. They have also used different hover effects really well in order to create interesting links which are very easy to use. The website is also very informative without being boring and maintains a fun feel throughout which overall makes for a very happy web experience.

My favourite website from their portfolio is for the company MIX Online (http://visitmix.com/). That website looks like this;


This website is set out in a very similar way to the portfolio website of the company, but it still manages to become a completely different experience through the use of different colours and fonts. I really like the way they have used a very low-key light grey background and then put little splashes of colour in different places throughout the page. The page also has a nice feel to it, with everything being big and bold and it becomes obvious very quickly how to navigate through the website and what different things do. There are also several uses of really interesting graphic design in the page, particularly in the top right with the use of different coloured circles which overlap. Also a very heavy typography influence is apparent in the site, and some of the fonts used are very interesting but work really well together to create a nice and clean site.

The other sites designed by the company follow a very similar layout, with the links located in the top right corner and everything fitting together really nicely. They also use very plain backgrounds and little splashes of colour in different places to add a really nice design effect.

Update

Been very busy these past few weeks with various different things. First of all are the two websites I am working on for the Peacock pub. I have been trying to experiment with my second design more and it hasn't really come out how I intended it to, but I still think it works fairly well.

Alongside this I have been working on the website I made for a family friend's business, this can be found at; http://www.germanauto.co.uk and it is now very close to completion.

I have also been working on my own personal website which I am very happy with so far. It isn't online yet, but it looks like this;

Website Layout

I have been trying out different possible layouts for my project. The image below is the first layout I came up with, I made the website in Dreamweaver and then decided I didn't really like it. This was primarily due to the dark navigation bar on the left hand side. I felt it looked untidy and I also didnt really like the text on the side bar.

I then designed the below layout in photoshop. I felt this layout was alot more user friendly with the navigation at the top of the page. I also think it makes it look more tidy and keeps the design simple but still does what it needs to to keep the user interested in the website. I have since created the layout for the page in Dreamweaver, this can now be used across all pages of the website and keeps it flowing nicely.

Analysis

http://www.puma.jp/tribes

This is a Japanese website designed for sports teams, primarily football, to create and order a kit for themselves. I really liked the whole idea of the website and found it very easy to use. The website allows you to choose what kind of kit or training item you need, you can then choose the different styles of top and bottom, and then customize the colours of each item. You can then order your customized clothes directly from the website.

I really enjoyed using the website and thought it was a very good idea. The main problem I had with the website was the loading speed. It took quite a while to get onto each page, however once each page had fully loaded then the website ran a lot quicker.

I also really liked the way the website was designed, it was set out in a really neat and tidy way which worked very well. The way it has been designed means it is very user friendly and straightforward to use. Although this is not one of the best websites I have seen, it is a very nice design and a really good idea.