Monday, November 1, 2010
Week 4 - HW - Zach Horst - Article Summary
This article is about the current shifts in website design toward a more user-friendly and design-oriented style. It highlights a few of the best and most current web design trends and tells why they are useful and necessary.
The article begins by showing examples and explaining the trend of designing websites so that the user feel happy and welcome upon first view of the site. The techniques used to achieve this result are brighter colors, less serious themes and personal touches like mouse-over effects.
The second trend discussed in the article is more of a usability trend. Websites have started utilizing the keyboard as a means of navigating their pages, rather than just using the mouse.
The next section of the article talks about the trend of taking cues from print media to enhance a website's design. This can be done using hand-rendered type, arranging the site like a newspaper or magazine, or by using strong, headline-like typography.
The fourth section of the article highlights horizontalism, the trend of laying out a website to be viewed by scrolling back and forth, rather than up and down. This creates a more distinct effect for the user, therefore making the website more memorable.
The final section of the article discusses rich, strong typography. This trend can be seen in the form of huge slab fonts and large serif fonts as well. This is becoming more possible because of the recently available ability to embed fonts into a website so that a computer doesn't to have a font downloaded to view it in the website.
Overall, this article sites that web-design is definitely moving in a positive direction, both in design and in user interface.
The article begins by showing examples and explaining the trend of designing websites so that the user feel happy and welcome upon first view of the site. The techniques used to achieve this result are brighter colors, less serious themes and personal touches like mouse-over effects.
The second trend discussed in the article is more of a usability trend. Websites have started utilizing the keyboard as a means of navigating their pages, rather than just using the mouse.
The next section of the article talks about the trend of taking cues from print media to enhance a website's design. This can be done using hand-rendered type, arranging the site like a newspaper or magazine, or by using strong, headline-like typography.
The fourth section of the article highlights horizontalism, the trend of laying out a website to be viewed by scrolling back and forth, rather than up and down. This creates a more distinct effect for the user, therefore making the website more memorable.
The final section of the article discusses rich, strong typography. This trend can be seen in the form of huge slab fonts and large serif fonts as well. This is becoming more possible because of the recently available ability to embed fonts into a website so that a computer doesn't to have a font downloaded to view it in the website.
Overall, this article sites that web-design is definitely moving in a positive direction, both in design and in user interface.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Week 4 - HW - Zach Horst - Website Designs Article
1. Puma - I liked this layout because I thought the grid was clean and the colors worked very well. The red of the logo was used well in the rest of the design. The sparse use of color in the design overall made the red they use very eye-catching. They used almost every inch of the browser space, but not in a busy way. They used it well. The texture they used is a trend in design.
2. Oyster Design - I like the colors in this layout a lot. Also, the logo is very clean and simple, while still being interesting. The woodgrain with the light blue type over it caught my eye the most. They used the browser space well. Two of the design trends they used are texture and large type.
3. London Creative - I really like the monochromatic design of this website. The combination of the black and white pictures and the yellow works really well. Yellow being the only color in this design caught my eye the most. They relied on photos and sparse type to get their message across. The use of large photographs is a current trend in design that they used.
4. Ecoki - I love the way this website makes it look like you are looking over a ledge out onto a mountain range. I think it goes really well with their eco theme and isn't tacky. The soothing scene in the background of this layout caught my eye the most. They didn't utilize the browser window much for information, but for aesthetics. The huge header that they used is a trend in design.
5. Contrast - Again, the yellow and the black and white pictures work well. Also, I like the font in the logo and the hand-made style. The jagged edges on the photos caught my eye the most. They chose to fill their window with pictures. The large picture they used is a trend in design.
6. Finch - The simplicity of this website it wonderful. I think the logo is simple while still being original, and the sparse use of extra text works really well. The giant logo really catches your eye, not to mention the fact that it is only black on an off-white background. They used most of the window to emphasize their logo. The giant logo is a trend in design that they utilized.
2. Oyster Design - I like the colors in this layout a lot. Also, the logo is very clean and simple, while still being interesting. The woodgrain with the light blue type over it caught my eye the most. They used the browser space well. Two of the design trends they used are texture and large type.
3. London Creative - I really like the monochromatic design of this website. The combination of the black and white pictures and the yellow works really well. Yellow being the only color in this design caught my eye the most. They relied on photos and sparse type to get their message across. The use of large photographs is a current trend in design that they used.
4. Ecoki - I love the way this website makes it look like you are looking over a ledge out onto a mountain range. I think it goes really well with their eco theme and isn't tacky. The soothing scene in the background of this layout caught my eye the most. They didn't utilize the browser window much for information, but for aesthetics. The huge header that they used is a trend in design.
5. Contrast - Again, the yellow and the black and white pictures work well. Also, I like the font in the logo and the hand-made style. The jagged edges on the photos caught my eye the most. They chose to fill their window with pictures. The large picture they used is a trend in design.
6. Finch - The simplicity of this website it wonderful. I think the logo is simple while still being original, and the sparse use of extra text works really well. The giant logo really catches your eye, not to mention the fact that it is only black on an off-white background. They used most of the window to emphasize their logo. The giant logo is a trend in design that they utilized.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Zach Horst - Wk3 - IC - Notebooks Product Web Design
Notebooks/Sketchbooks
Target Market
Gender: Male
Race: White/Hispanic/Asian
Education: College
Age: 18-35
Income: 40-80K
Browser: Firefox, Safari or Chrome
Speed: Broadband
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Operating System: Windows 7 or Mac OSX
User Profiles:
Creative Brief:
Overview:
Objective:
Audience:
Tone:
Message:
Tech Specs:
Sitemap:
Wireframes:
Target Market
Gender: Male
Race: White/Hispanic/Asian
Education: College
Age: 18-35
Income: 40-80K
Browser: Firefox, Safari or Chrome
Speed: Broadband
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Operating System: Windows 7 or Mac OSX
User Profiles:
Creative Brief:
Overview:
Objective:
Audience:
Tone:
Message:
Tech Specs:
Sitemap:
Wireframes:
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
WK2 - Zach Horst - IC - Redesign
Sodade Coffee Company - Original Website
Target Market
Sex: Female
Race: C/Asian/H/Af. Amer.
Education: Some College
Age: 22-38
Income: $50-80K
Marital Status: Married w/ Children
Browser: Internet Explorer, Firefox
Speed: Broadband
Res: 800 x 60
OS: Windows XP or Vista
________________
User Profiles
Sue Jones is a mom in her late twenties. After she drops her two kids off at school in the morning, she meets her two friends for coffee before heading to her part-time job. She enjoys her time with her friends over coffee and likes a low-key, welcoming atmosphere. She comes home to her husband and children after work and makes dinner for them. In the evening they all do an activity together then go to bed.
Jennifer Smith is a single woman with a high level job. She works a lot and prides herself on a job well done. She lives in a nicer apartment in North Austin and has a dog that she walks frequently and takes to the park on Saturday every week. Jennifer reads and watches TV in her spare time, when not playing with her dog.
________________
Creative Brief
Overview: This website will be informative and welcoming. It will make people want to try our coffee because they feel that they can be confortable and enjoy it.
Objective: That when a person sees our website, they will want to visit out store.
Audience: Young - Middle Aged Women and Young Men.
Tone: Earthy and welcoming. Warm colors and nature elements.
Message: Our coffee is the best there is.
Tech Requirements: A recently updated browser. IE or firefox.
Target Market
Sex: Female
Race: C/Asian/H/Af. Amer.
Education: Some College
Age: 22-38
Income: $50-80K
Marital Status: Married w/ Children
Browser: Internet Explorer, Firefox
Speed: Broadband
Res: 800 x 60
OS: Windows XP or Vista
________________
User Profiles
Sue Jones is a mom in her late twenties. After she drops her two kids off at school in the morning, she meets her two friends for coffee before heading to her part-time job. She enjoys her time with her friends over coffee and likes a low-key, welcoming atmosphere. She comes home to her husband and children after work and makes dinner for them. In the evening they all do an activity together then go to bed.
Jennifer Smith is a single woman with a high level job. She works a lot and prides herself on a job well done. She lives in a nicer apartment in North Austin and has a dog that she walks frequently and takes to the park on Saturday every week. Jennifer reads and watches TV in her spare time, when not playing with her dog.
________________
Creative Brief
Overview: This website will be informative and welcoming. It will make people want to try our coffee because they feel that they can be confortable and enjoy it.
Objective: That when a person sees our website, they will want to visit out store.
Audience: Young - Middle Aged Women and Young Men.
Tone: Earthy and welcoming. Warm colors and nature elements.
Message: Our coffee is the best there is.
Tech Requirements: A recently updated browser. IE or firefox.
Monday, October 11, 2010
WK1 - Zach Horst - HW - Article Summary
Article 1 - Dear Print Designer Doing Web Design
This article should probably be bookmarked for all graphic design students who haven't dealt very much with web design, because it covers some of the basic mess-ups common to web design. It talks about resolution (72 ppi!) and reminds the reader that a designer has to be aware of the size of the browser that they are working with and how it changes and that a designer must make their design work for many different sized windows. I like that he mentioned that a concern for web-safe colors isn't really necessary because the internet isn't really limited to them anymore, because having to stick to web-safe colors really messes with the whole design process.
Article 2 - Print Design vs. Web Page Design
This article is a bit more technical than the first one. I did not know before reading it that JPEG stood for "Joint Photographers Experts Group." Though it is more technical, the first article is a little clearer. The point of this article is to remind the designer that they need to be focused on what their client needs in a successful website, not what they can do themselves. This article points out the importance of using the most efficient methods for creating a website, so that the page will load faster, because that is a very important factor in getting people to actually view the website.
This article should probably be bookmarked for all graphic design students who haven't dealt very much with web design, because it covers some of the basic mess-ups common to web design. It talks about resolution (72 ppi!) and reminds the reader that a designer has to be aware of the size of the browser that they are working with and how it changes and that a designer must make their design work for many different sized windows. I like that he mentioned that a concern for web-safe colors isn't really necessary because the internet isn't really limited to them anymore, because having to stick to web-safe colors really messes with the whole design process.
Article 2 - Print Design vs. Web Page Design
This article is a bit more technical than the first one. I did not know before reading it that JPEG stood for "Joint Photographers Experts Group." Though it is more technical, the first article is a little clearer. The point of this article is to remind the designer that they need to be focused on what their client needs in a successful website, not what they can do themselves. This article points out the importance of using the most efficient methods for creating a website, so that the page will load faster, because that is a very important factor in getting people to actually view the website.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
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