Evaluation for web design.

What were you asked to do? (Project brief tasks)

 I needed to create a website that would represent me as a designer and my work. It needed to include the pages: Home, About me, Work and Portfolio. The website should communicate aspects of my work and/or personality. 

What did you make/present?

 I have made a 4 page website, using the techniques shown within lessons and others that I have learnt myself. I made a home page as an introduction to my website, an about me page to tell people about myself as a designer, a work page to show my capabilities as a designer and a contact me page. 

What did you want to communicate?

 I wanted to show a juxtaposition between dark, grungy imagery and bright colours. I feel that this represents my personality. Also my work is often darker/grungy but I also produce more colourful pieces. 

I also want to communicate professionalism and ma capability at design. This means that my website must be well designed and that the work I choose to showcase needs to be the best quality work that I have produced. 

I also wanted to show how I work - digitally whilst using traditional techniques to enhance and texture my work, therefore my website needs to represent this.

Who was your intended audience?

 My intended audience is university admissions tutors and prospective clients. I am applying to uni and having a website will be another way of me advertising myself to universities I am applying to. I also want to show people looking for a designer that I am capable of producing the work they are looking at having done so that I can add extra pieces to my personality.  

What materials and processes did you experiment with?

 I learnt slicing so that I can create the layout for my website in Photoshop and then export it as a HTML document. I learnt how to use behaviours to change links to roll-overs - changing the image. I have learnt how to change font styles and positioning of items using CSS in Dreamweaver. 

What materials and processes did you reject?

 I haven't used roll overs for my links as I feel that this didn't fit in with the look of my website. 

What materials and processes did you use in your final designs?

 I used Photoshop to create my layout. A tea stained piece of paper was scanned in to help create the background. This creates a dark, grungy texture that represents this part of my personality. I then used the techniques detailed in my previous post. 

How do the materials you chose to use help you to communicate your message to your audience?

The grungy texture communicates this part of my personality and my work. This is then balanced off with the colourful links which communicates the other side of my work and personality. The work showcased on the web site then backs this up as you can see both the darker, grungy pieces and those that are more colourful. 

What did you do to ensure you worked with tools and materials safely?

I made sure that I had no food or drinks around the computers and that I took regular breaks from the computer screen. When tea staining the paper I did this in an area away from computers and electronic equipment. 

How well did you manage your time?

Although my time management could improve I feel that I have done better on this project then previous ones. I had gotten more work done earlier on then before. My main issue at the minute is balancing all the areas of my life as with college, work and church commitments I am finding it hard to find time to relax and have fun - running the risk of burn out. I am trying to address this. I have started to use a timetable that I have created for myself to plan my college work and other activities for the week around work, college and church. 

What were your strengths in completing this project?

 I had done web design in the past and so I had a good understanding of the basic principles. including the way that coding works. This was a major benefit as it meant I could concentrate on learning the new skills without having to worry about having to get to grips with the basics. It also meant that I got on will the new skills I learnt well as I understood how they worked, even though I hadn't known how to do it in the past. It also meant that I managed to bring in some techniques that I had learnt in the past to enhance my work as well as those that we were shown in the tutorials. 

What would you like to have done differently?

 I would firstly like to try and balance my commitments more effectively. I would also have liked to put some more work into the development stage of the design process.

What will you do to ensure you improve for the next project?

Next time I will make sure that I balance these areas of my life more effectively and put more effort into the design development side of the project to ensure I can achieve the best grade possible.