We decided to do a restaurant website called Burger Asylum, and we did use some websites as a bases to how we had the layout of our site. The website we used that most resembles ours and that helped us the most was the Jerome Bettis Grille 36 found at http://jeromebettisgrille36.g3restaurants.com/. To start with, they have an simple yet excellent layout, because its simple to read, easy to understand, and also eye catching. They have a slide show as their home page’s background which keeps some movement to the page and keeps it fresh. Their left hand stationary sidebar is where i got the idea of a simple layout for each page. It is easy to do and creates a very easy navigation service for the user. They have use of simple colors such as yellow-gold, black, and white. They use black transparent boxes for where their information is on the right side of the screen but it is not too transparent to which it makes the reader focus too hard on the text. The use of textures throughout the jerome bettis grille does not stand out, but i would have to say that the background photos give it a sense of texture not necessarily the type of generic texture most would see on a background or menu bar, etc. Also the transparent boxes pic up some of the picture in the background which also in a sense creates a texture for the text to rest upon.
In comparing both Burger Asylum and Jerome Bettis Grille, you can begin to see similarities between the two and also some differences. Burger Asylum has the same basic layout, starting with the left hand navigation bar that stays fixed in place so that if you scroll up through the information (on the right) the navigation bar stays in place allowing the user to switch to a different page at anytime, without having to scroll up. This is a key feature that would make Burger Asylum stand out, because users would feel its simple and easy. Also the transparent information boxes on the right side of the page resemble each other with the solid color that is transparent allowing the background to show through, yet Burger Asylum has an easier interface when it comes to that. It has a simple textured background, so the text within the box is alot easier to read rather than with the images showing through on the Jerome Bettis Grille. Our site would be very effective because of the simple and pleasant color pallette that we choose to use, which was between dark reds, pale yellows and black. These colors originated from the textured backgrounds we had, because we felt it would make the overall theme flow smoothly. Finishing up our site has similarities with Jerome Bettis Grille, yet they are not the same site and i feel that Burger Asylum grasped the concepts from JB Grille and took them a little further with our ideas.