DESIGN FOR WEB: LIST PAGE RESEARCH

For my list page I needed to find relevant and good websites for my users to then go onto and find out more. I decided to create these lists but putting them into 4 categories and 5 external links for each header which are listed below. 

Websites

New Grids
Cover Junkie
MagSpread
Chron
Digital Arts

Magazines

Derzeit

Bon

Love

Pop

V 

Used

Dazed / Confused

i-D

Designers

Suberbia
Fat Type
Jeffery Docherty
Terry Jones
Alex Geoffrey

Photographers

Nick Knight
Emma Summerton
Lena Emery
Patrick Houi
Rankin

WEB SEMINAR: NUMIKO

Today we had some visitors come into uni to talk about web design, under the name of Numiko. 

Numiko are a Leeds based company who have worked with a multitude of high profile clients who want website and other digital media. Below are some notes I have taken from the talk.

Designing for screen by Matt Tweedle and David Eccles.

Digital agency in Leeds.

What do they do?

Digital things

public and entertainment sectors

dont sell thing and make produces that are usable and meaningful.

Clients: channel 4, bbd, disney, design council. nhs, university of leeds, nspcc, water aid, cancer research and nesta

Why are the limitations of web?

too many limitation

designers need to be able to code

designing websites all the time must get boring

web designers lack an understanding of esign principles

you need to move to london to work on high profile projects

we believe these are all wrong.

Limitations that are disapearing

typography

responsive grids

scaling vector graphics (SVG)

html5, canvas and open GL

connection speeds.

Designers don't have to able to code.

Not boring, web is constantly evolving with technology and a host of new exciting challenges. Maturing industry, we take design seriously.

- Clients.

Nesta

Make stuff do things.

Cube, a single pixel the start of digital making. 

Considering what else it can adapt to like mobile phone apps.

WaterAid

A lot of illustrations, type and colour.

Commuincate a need  for water and it's impact.

Lewis Hamilton

A timeline of his life.

Modern and personal.

Social networks to promote his personal life.

Similar to design for print.

Iconography is a good foundation to do all of the stuff for web.

The Lottery

Office for National Statistics

Channel 4

IPTV

Film 4

BBC

Design Council

Discover. define. design, develop, deploy.

Understanding audiences: who they are, what they need, to understand their digital lives, to understand your organisational needs from a digital platform. to ensure we're answering the right questions throughout the project.

Developed personas for people / potential target audience to consider user  needs.

Finding the right balance between something that is over the top and intuitive  To something simple and is aesthetically pleasing.

Clear - Flexible - Simple - Creative.

User-centerd.

Mobile first. 

Device agnostic.

GUDING PRINCIPLES.

 Focus on content: reduce interface debris and focus in delivery of content

Make it simple: functionality should be designed to be entirely intuitive and obvious

Embrace less is more: strive to achieve the same functionality through as few visual elements as possible without sacrificing clarity.

Be consistent: use concisistent design patterns to reduce user thinking time

Consider context

Be bold

Development for a client or website.

Proposal: 3 weeks

Final: 6 - 8 weeks

Not many designers on a project, they have some what ownership. For placements they work on live breifs and get placements for two weeks.

Skills

Typography designers.

Illustrations / Digital illustrations.

I really enjoyed this talk, it showed all the possibilities you can create in web which is was a source of influence in the production for this module. 

DESIGN FOR WEB: GALLERY RESEARCH

For my gallery, I wanted to have the latest editorial covers to put onto the page. I sourced the majority of my images from the websites of the magazines and pinterest which I collated onto boards that would also be featured on my website.

 

source

Considering the results of my survey a lot of the comments from my target audience requested:

• Designers of the magazine and the aesthetics including type, ect.
• Models
• Photographers
• Websites

I collated most of this information from my summer brief blog and the websites I went onto which are all sourced onto the Pinterest boards and website. Although some of the information was quite hard to find I did get the majority of the vital information my users wanted.

DESIGN FOR WEB: WEBSITE ANALYSIS

When researching into website design I came across a couple of website that had a similar approach to what I wanted to achieve. I decided to break down what the website had in order for me to apply some of these features to my own website as a source of inspiration

MagSpreads

Mag spreads is a website that features magazine design from all different genres. The website maintains a simplistic grid and colour scheme. It is packed with information about stories behind the magazines and  includes a continous feed of popular posts. 

The website in my personal opinion is quite over crowed and doesn't allow the users to have the opportunity to see the covers of the magazine individually and choose what they want to look at, which is something I will work against. However it does have a lot of useful features to external social links and information behind who has designed the magazines.

home

about

gallery / blog

submission

Cover Junkie

Cover Junkie is also a website that features magazines form a multitude of genres around the world. The website works with a gallery on the home page and create an instant interactive feature with it's users which is something I will consider in the production of my website.  Similar to MagSpreads the website has links to social networks and factual information about the people who have contributed to the magazines.  One feature I thought was very interesting was that website has it's own annual magazine that features the best covers that it's users can buy. Considering the time I have for this project this is something I would like to create or propose for my website also.

home

gallery

about

magazine

DESIGN FOR WEB: FASHION WEBSITE RESEARCH

After looking at some design based websites, I decided to research further into the aesthetics of strictly fashion editorial websites to see the features they obtained and how I could use some of them in my work.

Vogue

I decided to look at vogue magazine firstly, as it is high regarded in the fashion industry and globally. The website has a clean and minimal approach which allows the images to stand out for the audience to interact with.  The website uses clean serif type which makes it look professional and clean cut.

After looking at this website I then decided to look into the websites, of the magazines I wanted to feature. Although Vogue is highly recognised, the main theme of my website is to introduce magazine that have really interesting design but are not as commercially recognised as other leading editorials.

Derzeit

Derzeit is a Berlin based fashion magazine, that uses negative effectively round the boarder of the covers. 

The website follows the same conventions of the design of the editorial which I think is works cohesively as a brand. The home page uses a statement logo to attract it's users to interact with. The features of this web page include contacts, and links to social network pages which is something I will take into consideration when making mine. I also like the use of white and black on the website which allows the photographs colours to really stand out.

Bon

Bon is Swedish based magazine that experiments with really modern and futuristic type and photography. The website again introduced external links such as Instagram 'bonstagram'  so users can stay up to date with what the magazine is up to. 

Love

Although Love creates a really good magazine, I think they are let down by their website as it is very hard to navigate. The home page is full of pop ups, motion graphics and landing pages which doesn't make it user friendly and is something I will consider when creating mine. However the feature pages are much more simplistic and the photography is set out clearly with option to look at the images in higher resolution. One thing I have learnt from looking at this magazine is the importance to maintain consistency throughout a design.

Pop

Pop is a british based magazine in London. their website is very clean, minimal and works with a lot of imagery. However the website fails to show issues of the magazine which is quite un-usueful for it's users. A important thing for me to consider is what content is relevant and irrelevant for the my website so that my users can successfully interact with it.

V 

V is a american magazine based in New York, the website takes on a strong back background which also helps emphasise the text and images on the page and is a bold feature. Again it also has external links to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for it's users to interact with further.

Used

Used magazine is a London based magazine, I really like the layout of this website as it's clean and consistent throughout and easy to navigate. The website uses consistent use of type and photography making the design look professional and consistent. The aesthetics and message of this website is something I would like to obtain in my own.

Dazed / Confused

Again dazed and confused has a similar style to the magazine above, however the website experiments more with the arrangement of content and grids which I think gives it visual variation.

i-D

Lastly i-D magazine is one of my favourite magazine, however I think the website is not very user friendly, the landing page makes it hard to navigate to get onto the home page and the brief naming of links makes it hard to find what you are looking for.

From all the research on these websites, I found that are a lot of interesting feature that I have come across that I would like to include in my website, such as social network links which create direct communication with the users. Also the layout and grids from the majority of these websites are minimalistic allowing the photographs to do the talking. Looking at these websites has allowed me to brainstorm some good idea's to move forward with when producing mine.

DESIGN FOR WEB: DESIGN WEBSITE RESEARCH

Before designing any of my website, I wanted to look into websites that were design based that act as a source of influence. I also looked at artist blogs focusing on the grids, content and layouts used.

Nasty Gal

Nasty Gal is a fashion blog and apparel store, I really like the manipulation of the images on this website which make the website stand out and adds texture.

Elise Rose

Elise Rose is a photographer, again I like the way she manipulates the images in her portfolio to add texture and colour. The grid of her website is very simplistic allowing the images to stand out and act as a main focus.

Design Inspiration

Design Inspiration was one of the favourited blogs according to my survey, I decided to look into this website further as this was something my target audience generally looked at. I think the layout of the page is very simplistic and creates a collaging technique for the photo's which makes it stand out. Also when an image is clicked onto there are links and information about the design which is a useful feature to require and is something I will consider.

Creative Journal

Similary to design inspiration the creative journal follows a similar grid. The images work it a light box format so when they clicked onto they grow bigger and text is formatted underneath. This feature is very common in the websites I have looked at and again is something I should include.

Design Milk

Design Milk was another favourite from my survey, the website takes on a different approach than the other one's I have looked at and instead of a wall gallery it used blog posts for the reader to look further into. I don;t think a feature like this would be suitable for the type of website I am trying to produce but is a consideration.

Baubau Haus

Baubau haus is something I would really like to create aesthetically, the simplistic colours against the photo's works really well and the logo / black navigation back makes it easy to navigate round visually. The website include features such as tags, social network links and drop down menus to get to specific art work.

After looking through these websites there are a lot features that I have come across that have influenced the way I want to design my work. I think that using a simplistic colour pallet will benefit the whole design of my work as it allows the photography to stand out and a collage style gallery for the images to work into creates a clean and professional look.

DESIGN FOR WEB: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

After coming up with a concept for my website, I thought the best way to see if it was appropriate was to create a survey and send it to my target audience. I sent this survey to some students from LCA and my old college to get an all rounded view.

Survey

Some of the results I received were very useful, for me to identify what my audience wanted on a website like this.

From the results I also enabled people to leave comments. These included.

• Use names of designers and links to their personal pages
• Websites like design inspiration and design milk have good information and navigation
• I think this website would be useful 
• Include clear images and links to find them

Although some of there results were useful to me creating the website, there were also some of the surgery takers who would find the website useful. I think this is down to personal interests and preferences. This then made me considers my target audience more and felt it was aimed at a niche audience who are specifically interested in fashion editorial design. I thought that this might be a problem at first but considering all the websites out there, there is something for everyone to enjoy individually.