Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Critique: Website development
So this week our websites are finally up. Mine (big surprise) has changed again. In honor of all of you who patiently rolled your eyes everytime you heard me say 'I changed my homepage!' I have compiled as many of the old designs as I could to show my progression.
Hold off the laughter, because now I will try to defend my many designs. It shouldn't matter how many versions you create, if what you have isn't good enough, it needs to be changed. Each of these had their own little problems, and because this website represents my professional work, it must look professional and fit my design style. Kate made a point last week that the last design wasn't reflective of who I was as a designer, and if it doesn't reflect who I am, it had to be changed.
The original design:
I love orchids. They were on my resume, and I carried it over to the webpage. This design changed slightly, I learned Photoshop filter tricks and made buttons that looked like oriental reed-paper, sort of. Design two was this, but with those green buttons and filters.
Design 3:
I created this design by accident. I was working with tables inside Dreamweaver and creating these boxes for my design samples. I recreated my homepage to match the then-design page. I also got rid of the orchids because I felt putting flowers on your portfolio was a little too stereotypical-female-designer-ish. I needed to sell myself creatively, and using a cliched image doesn't work.
Design 4 & 5: My art-deco phase
I realized my webpage looked too busy, there were too many things going on in it, and so I tried to simplify the look of it by creating a page within Photoshop instead of Dreamweaver. I got carried away with the font, and I'm not really shocked neither design stayed around for awhile. They looked a little too over-done. Also, my friend Emem said the later design looked too much like a license plate.
Design 6:
My previous webpage I thought would stick. I got the idea after looking at art books, I love the multiple-color vertical lines. It didn't really translate well onto a website, thought, I had LOTS of issues with color choice, it had an art-school look to it that took away from its utility, and fellow designer Kate pointed out the design didn't really fit who I was. So I changed. ONE LAST TIME (who am I kidding...we'll say one last time this semester, that will be a little more accurate)
The current design (Lucky No. 7):
This design is simple, I like the color scheme, mixing a bright, bold color with more natural tones, and it also serves its purpose as a showcase for my design work.
Will it change? Definitely. I used strictly JPG images to produce this thing, and I think with a little more time spent reading the Dreamweaver textbook, I could produce something on Dreamweaver that looks just as sharp. But don't worry....it won't change again for at least another month.....
Hold off the laughter, because now I will try to defend my many designs. It shouldn't matter how many versions you create, if what you have isn't good enough, it needs to be changed. Each of these had their own little problems, and because this website represents my professional work, it must look professional and fit my design style. Kate made a point last week that the last design wasn't reflective of who I was as a designer, and if it doesn't reflect who I am, it had to be changed.
The original design:
I love orchids. They were on my resume, and I carried it over to the webpage. This design changed slightly, I learned Photoshop filter tricks and made buttons that looked like oriental reed-paper, sort of. Design two was this, but with those green buttons and filters.
Design 3:
I created this design by accident. I was working with tables inside Dreamweaver and creating these boxes for my design samples. I recreated my homepage to match the then-design page. I also got rid of the orchids because I felt putting flowers on your portfolio was a little too stereotypical-female-designer-ish. I needed to sell myself creatively, and using a cliched image doesn't work.
Design 4 & 5: My art-deco phase
I realized my webpage looked too busy, there were too many things going on in it, and so I tried to simplify the look of it by creating a page within Photoshop instead of Dreamweaver. I got carried away with the font, and I'm not really shocked neither design stayed around for awhile. They looked a little too over-done. Also, my friend Emem said the later design looked too much like a license plate.
Design 6:
My previous webpage I thought would stick. I got the idea after looking at art books, I love the multiple-color vertical lines. It didn't really translate well onto a website, thought, I had LOTS of issues with color choice, it had an art-school look to it that took away from its utility, and fellow designer Kate pointed out the design didn't really fit who I was. So I changed. ONE LAST TIME (who am I kidding...we'll say one last time this semester, that will be a little more accurate)
The current design (Lucky No. 7):
This design is simple, I like the color scheme, mixing a bright, bold color with more natural tones, and it also serves its purpose as a showcase for my design work.
Will it change? Definitely. I used strictly JPG images to produce this thing, and I think with a little more time spent reading the Dreamweaver textbook, I could produce something on Dreamweaver that looks just as sharp. But don't worry....it won't change again for at least another month.....
// posted by teresasanserif @ 10:53 AM 
