SPP Assignment 1

Well I clearly didn't read the brief for this assignment very well! I reread it after our SPP lecture today and there's much more work involved than I thought! I need to -

Find four real-world multimedia jobs and create a mock application for one of them - Should be simple enough!

Find four postgraduate courses and create a mock application for one of them - I've been browsing thought postgraduate courses for a while now, and can't really find many focused specifically around web design. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Write a 1000 word rationale outlining why I chose the specific job and course - Can I really say 1000 words about this? Probably. Just doesn't seem like a fun thing to do right now...

Create a new web design orientated curriculum vitae - The only CV I have right now is my regular retail/admin based one, so I suppose this needs to be done sooner or later.

Create an electronic portfolio of my work to support my applications - Possibly matching my new CV

It's definitely good that we're doing this so we're prepared after graduation, just wishing I'd started it last term now! Silly me..

Logo Ideas

I'm not feeling to great at the moment so apologies if this isn't very coherent!

This is the current logo for The Petal School of Motoring website -

It's based around that fact that the owner is named Peta, and by adding the l-plate on the end it makes Petal, which is how the company got its name originally. It's a nice idea and the client wants the logo to remain this way, though I will be giving it a bit of a redesign.

Idea 1 - Pretty basic, just a change of font really. The l-plate is intentionally covering the text to give the impression it's just been slapped over the top.

Idea 2 - More decorative than the previous idea, though I'm not sure about the font. I've used floral brushes to give a feminine feel.

Idea 3 - As above only with a serif font used. Still not sure though!

Idea 4 - A layering effect is used here with a textured background. Might play around with this a bit more. Maybe giving it a sketchier feel?

More to follow...

Client - Wireframes

I've been working on some wireframes for the Petal School of Motoring website. Here are the first 2. Hopefully they should translate well into working designs.

I've decided to make the logo and header area quite prominent, as it will be the first way for the user to make the connection between the website and the Petal car they've seen driving around. Large headers are also on trend with web design at the moment, as are horizontal navigations, which I personally prefer anyway.

I did play around with the idea of a vertical navigation but found the results were not quite what I wanted. Vertical navigation is actually being considered an out of date method nowadays, as explained over at Smashing Magazine in this interesting article. This was written around a year ago, and looking at popular websites at the moment, you can see that vertical navigation is not a very common feature.

Argh

I've seen so many bad driving school websites now I feel as if I should make it my personal mission to rid the world of them. I think the problem lies with the many companies that are offering to make websites for driving schools, when they clearly lack the skills to do so... I mean, come on -

PRP - Survey

If anyone is looking at this please go and fill out this survey to help with my PRP research!

Located here: http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HBIILF_2ade67df

It's very short and won't take long, but your opinions are invaluable!

More Driving Schools...

Still scouting out the current environment of driving school websites...

Ignition Driver Training - This website isn't incredibly bad, but it has the feel of a template that someone has just slapped all their own information on. The cheesy stock images only add to this, as well as the 'sidebar' containing only one link that directs to an empty page. You can clearly tell the website has not been specifically designed for this company, and so it feels kind of disconnected. I want the website for my client to feel as if it's part of a brand, so people will see the site and immediately know it's connected to that car they see driving around.

Brakethru School of Motoring - As soon as this website loads up an annoying woman pops up in the corner congratulating you on finding them. Most people find websites that play sound at them automatically rather annoying, and this is no exception! Generally it's not a bad website, but the way they're displaying content is letting them down. The varied fonts and text colours look confusing and amateur, like someone designing a poster for a church fayre in Microsoft word. There's also a couple of flashing images, which is kind of unnecessary.

Dr L Test School of Motoring - This is another website with an annoying person popping up to talk to you! This time it's a little man, and you get the option to play the video rather than it just starting up by itself. However, what he says is in to way specific to the company. He doesn't mention the company name, or anything about driving lessons, but tells the user to give them a call or email, without telling the number or address. It's clearly just a generic message you can buy from a company and stick on your website. I don't feel as if it adds anything to the site, and imagine that the 'play video' button doesn't even get pressed very often. The design of the website is not very attractive, and has an impersonal feel gained through the use of generic stock images and buttons.

Your Old Crap Website

http://youroldcrapwebsite.wordpress.com/

I love this blog! The author finds old website designs in the internet archives and compares them to the current design. Some are shockingly bad, some surprisingly before their time and others just plain funny. Also, the satirical way the author writes about the designs is entertainment enough!