ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design
Just another Intro to… siteArchive for Student Work
Last Bi-Weekly Review – Alex Antonacci
Live nation is a website that sells concert tickets to people around the world. Starting at the top the first thing the user will see when they visit is a large search bar where they can input any artist, show or venue and Live Nation will narrow down the results to make finding what they want easier. So before the site goer even decides to scroll down they can already find what they want in the fastest amount of time with this search bar. Most websites hide their search bar in the a small area on the menu at the right, but Live Nation takes full advantage of its capabilities. Its horizontal menu can take the user to all shows, watch videos, fan photos, venues, VIP, merchandise, sign in and my cart. Underneath the menu is Live Nation’s featured section, which holds four upcoming events that constantly switch to show equal importance. The user even has the option to scroll faster by clicking one on the squares in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.
To the right of the slideshow is a list of the top selling events in the area that the user lives in. This display temps the visitor to click on one of their favorite bands on the list to see if they could make the concert since everyone else is going.
Below that is the on sale and the on sale soon section so the user will know when they are able to buy tickets or if they still have some time. Below the slide show also provides a temptation showing the visitor that if they sign in and make an account, Live Nation will provide them with concert recommendations.
The website keeps it simple and only uses three colors: red black and white. The text is also simplistic with the exception of the logo where the “I” in Live Nation looks like the figure of a concert goer. The search menu, which continues on every page in the same place, has a dark background picture of a large most pit. Below the menu is a similar picture except that this one is less noticeable put in black and white and distorted so the user can only the the outline of the people.
Live Nation’s layout is an organized grid helping the user every step of the way. It holds a great set up even if the user docent make an account, but if they later decide to Live Nation makes personal recommendations and then makes the site uniquely form to each visitor.
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Review of the restaurant, China Gourmet – http://www.chinagourmetnj.com/
Since I reviewed a French gourmet restaurant previously, I thought it was best to evaluate a Chinese gourmet eatery. Also, since Delicieux is up, live, and running, it was nice to visually compare each of the sites side by side in comparison. So, here is my final and last review of the, China Gourmet:
Located in West Orange, NJ, the China Gourmet goes that extra mile on design and interaction. A few positives that the website has is its layout, jquery, and online ordering feature. One distinct flaw that the website unfortunately has its overuse of various fonts.
POSITIVES
Layout – The boxy design is organized, yet, well controlled. With everything maintained inside the main red box, it gives the website consistency, as well as organization. It also gives the viewer a chance to thoroughly enjoy the artistic details that surround the main box, including the Chinese dragons, chopsticks, glowing lantern, and textured backgrounds.
Jquery – The entire website contains a ton of jquery. From the loading page, to the navigation buttons, to the content, jquery plays a huge role in this site. It honestly pushes the envelope. For example, whenever the viewer clicks on the “About Us” page, whatever content was inside the main box disappears, and then the new content slides down from top to bottom transitionally. This feature is visually appealing, while pushing the limits. It is almost as if the web designer went as far as he/she could go without it being annoying or burdensome.
Online Ordering – This restaurant contains something different compared to the other sites that have been reviewed. They feature an online ordering system. When clicking on the “Online Order” tab, the site directs you to some information, where you can then click on a link to place your order. When redirected, the site gives the viewer prices of all their dishes with an “add to cart” button, where your total will begin to add up. This feature is something very unique, which gives the restaurant the opportunity to stay within the current technological times.
NEGATIVES
Font – As far as fonts, there are simply too many going on at once. For example, the main title, located at the very top of the page. This font is very artsy and appropriate, however the glow makes it extremely hard to read. Also, when going through the site in its entirety (through sub-sites and main-sites), the number of fonts turned out to be somewhere around seven. Seven different fonts are a bit extreme and overpowering. The site would be visually more successful with around two or three.
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Bosco’s Guitar ~ AFI Short Film
The website for the AFI Thesis short film, Bosco’s Guitar is a simple, yet effective page that accurately informs visitors about the short film, who is involved, and how they can help. The opening page shows a list of the links, features a promotional image, and has the title of the short film at the top in a childish font. This website has many positive and negative aspects to it, and perhaps it is best to discuss the websites weaknesses first.
One obvious problem is that the page was not designed for different browsers. The page is not centered and does not move when the website is expanded to a larger browser size. A plain, white background is revealed when the browser is enlarged. They should have either designed the page to resize with the browser or implement a better design where the image blends into the background. Another major issue is the resolution of the photos. Many of them are very low and the image looks slightly blurry as a result. That is a common sense issue they should have been resolved before the site ever went online. The site could also use some aspects of advanced web design. There is virtually no use of jquery or any interactivity outside of hovering over links. The design could implement more layering with opacities and gradients to make the page feel more three dimensional and sophisticated. In addition, it would be nice to see a trailer on the home page (or any page) since it is a site for a short film, and also it would be a nice touch to add a section for screening venues.
What the site lacks in sophistication, in makes up for in simplicity and ease of navigation. Every one of the sections of the page is clearly identified and the entire site can be navigated in a matter of seconds. Each page has the same navigation bar located on it, even though its location changes from the home page. Visitors can quickly find out what the film is about, that it’s created through AFI, who’s involved, who inspired the project, and how visitor’s can help contribute. The section where the site excels is the section dedicated to the crew. The page features links to each member and what their role in the production was. On their individual page, there is a brief bio, a picture, and a quote from them about the project. Aesthetically, one nice aspect of the page is the consistent grayish-purple and yellow color scheme used throughout the site giving it a unique rustic and impoverished look. Overall, the website for Bosco’s Guitar is a great example of both what to do right and what should be done better for a short film website. The simplicity of the site is great and makes it an effortless browsing experience, but the site simply needs to be taken a few steps further by adding some more pages with trailers and screening times and also some added depth in terms of aesthetic appeal.
~Written By John Marshall
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Bi-Weekly Review
For my final bi-weekly review, I have reviewed the website http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream. This site really relates to our final project and has a good take on what dreams are really about. http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream really goes in-depth of what to think about when people are asleep. With the images and links to other websites this site really captures our philosophy on what we want to portray to the viewers with our website. We are going for an overall good and simple layout of a short film for our website. This website has a lot going on. With all the images, links and ads on this particular site, it makes it a very detailed website. The simple background and simple text on the page really make the page come alive and draws the viewer into the site. Coming across this site was difficult because most sites really do not have websites on dreams and reality. There is simplicity and I really think that this makes the site worth the time of interest. I believe that there is way to many ads on this page. It draws your attention away from the site and doesn’t represent the site very well at all!! After clicking the links they take you away fromt http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream and take you to a different perspective on the author of the image and they tell you how they feel about dreams. It takes you to an article which in this case can be a good thing, but a bad thing at the same time. Lengthy articles can really draw the audience away from the site. With the simple images, text and layout. http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream really takes you in detail about what dreams are really about and what to expect form them. From a layout perspective it really needs more color, different style fonts and more detail. There is way to much going on in this website for a viewer to be interested for more than 30 seconds. http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream gets the point across, but it can use more work to really make an impression with the viewers.
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Bi-Weekly 7
For my bi-weekly review, I continue to look at different movie sites to help set up our site. The gallery is set up differently on the HUNGER GAMES and TITANIC sites. The Hunger Games has one picture at a time and it takes up the whole screen. Also the same thing goes along with the Titanic site. It catches the viewer eyes and helps them to go through the site and look at all the pictures. The viewers are always interested in learning more about the actors and what happens in the movies and pictures give them idea what to expect.
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Multipage Blog
For this biweekly blog on restaurant websites I have chosen, http://www.burgatorybar.com/, because it is one of my favorite restaurants. It is a simple site that is mainly aimed at showing the menu items to the customer. The opening page features a picture of their burger with a mini text box containing the restaurant’s mission statement. The links to the other pages are located in a box in the upper right corner as well as links to their social networking in the bottom right corner. There are five selections in the upper box; hungry, our spots, lets chat, our gear and happenings. The links all take you to an identical background page with the information varying depending upon the link. The information is mainly presented in text boxes.
Overall I think it is an all right site. It is nothing that is out of the ordinary which is not much of a worry for Burgatory. The restaurant really speaks for itself and I feel their webpage should be used mainly to highlight upcoming news and information about the growing chain.
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bi-weekly review 7
The final website was basically inspired on a restaurant for people that usually go out and stay out until late so that is why it calls “The Munchies”. The researches were based on different websites such as, applebees.com, chillies.com and olivegarden.com. These websites helped to create a layout for The Munchies website and a style for the site. Also researches about the menu like prices and dishes helped a lot when we put together the menu site. Each of those restaurant website have a different idea and that it what made the munchies, different ideas put together.
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Final Bi-weekly Review
For the restaurant, The Munchie’s, many of the basics came from sites such applebees.com, and olivegarden.com. A drop down menu in the navigation bar seemed to be very important. Also having a contact us, location, and an about us page was crucial. The home pages from these three sites all had pictures of offered items. The Munchie’s also has this on the home page.
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Bi-Weekly Review 6- Music Festival Junkies
Our website deals with a summer music festival series listing, comparing, and contrasting a few different music festivals based on cost, distance, and music genres. The site Music Festival Junkies lists nearly all the music festivals in Europe, The United States, and Canada in chronological order on the home page. This list is surrounded by various blogs, tweets, articles, and band line-ups. There is a bar with drop down menus beneath their very simple banner that offers further categorizing. Navigating with this bar one can find lists of the top 10 Mega festivals, camping festivals, unique festivals, and Canadian festivals under one tab. Then going to the right it has links to lists of United States Music festivals, European music festivals (sub menu of UK festivals), Canadian festivals, then has news on lineups and scenes, and finally the MFJ 50, a list of fifty of the festivals they most recommend. If one clicks through any list to a music festival it offers a brief dossier when and where the festival is, how much it costs, whether or not there is camping, give a list of the lineup and a short description of the atmosphere that one would encounter there and a link to the official site. On the right side there is a filter which expands to show different categories of festivals then one can click to expand the desired attribute to filter by, month, genre, or location then one chooses the category from the expanded stipulations, and the site offers a list of possible matches to the filter. Aesthetically the site doesn’t use anything flashy focusing more on bare bones easy navigation for the user. Overall the functionality of the site is great and offers an abundance of information on each festival, the methods that the site uses to lead people to the desired festival are swift and effective and the aesthetics don’t distract the user from the links that they should use.
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Bi-Weekly Review
For my bi-weekly review, I looked at different movie website to get an idea for the final project. By looking at different sites, I got an idea on how to set up our: the color, the layout, the texture, the font, and the structure on how the reviewer can navigate page to page. The website for the HUNGER GAMES and TITANIC helped out a lot because it attracts a lot of people to the site and the information they have will satisfy them. The websites let the reviewer know what is happening.
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Borderline Films
Borderline films is a New York based production company created by three NYU graduates, Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, and Josh Mund. They produce music videos, commercials, short films, and feature films. The companies website features examples of their work, short biographies on each of the directors, an about us page, a news page, a twitter link, and a contact page. In terms of navigation, the site is excellent due to its simplicity. It is effortless to get to each section of the site and explore the entire site in less than a minute. Nothing is distracting or confusing on the entire site, and every component serves a purpose. Overall, it has a very clear visual hierarchy, and requires little to no thought to navigate. However, aesthetically, the page is very plain and needs some improvement.
The website seems like it could be template. It is effect and simple, but it does not stand out at all. The website could definitely use a texture or some form of a gradient in the background. Also, some other effects such as shadows and blurring elements would be nice to make the site more three-dimensional. The color palette is very dull with different shades of grey and accented colors, red and green. It does not feel like the company has a branded identity through their website. They need to develop a defining color palette and font face to brand themselves. With the plain background, simple font face, and boring palette, the experience of browsing the site is not memorable. The site does feature a sleek use of j-query and rollover effects on pictures and videos. When a link is clicked, the items on the new page cross dissolve onto the page one element at the time. When linked videos and pictures are rolled over, they slowly increase their brightness. These subtle effects make the page a more interactive experience, and without them the site would be extremely basic. The website is successful because users can watch their videos and learn more about their company by using a simple, yet effect navigation system, but the overall page needs to be taken a step further aesthetically to give their company an online identity.
~Written by John Marshall
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Bi-weekly review 6
For my sixth bi-weekly review, I decided to look at a computer giant, Apple (www.Apple.com). The apple web site is very simple and elegant at the same time. It has a bright white color with a shiny texture to it as a background and picture of an ipad with a hand actually using it as the central and only picture. The font they use is grey in color; the main navigational tools are at the very top of the page and are set on a dark grey box. They both have a chromatic texture to them also. Whenever you scroll over the buttons, they get highlighted in dark grey. At the bottom of the page there are videos and different links.
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Restaruant Review
For my final project, my group decided to make a restaurant web page. To start generating ideas for the site, I looked at many restaurant sites and found a lot of similar things. All of the sites had a navigation bar the ran horizontally across the top of the page. In the navigation bar, there was a menu button, location, contact us, and about us button. Since it seemed like many restaurants used this feature, we decided to use it for our web site. The site I liked the most was Applebee’s website. When I moved my cursor over the menu tab, a drop down menu appeared that had different categories of food to choose from. I could click on appetizers, burgers, drinks, pasta, etc. If I chose drinks for example, I would click on that button and I would be taken to a page that listed all of the drinks available at Applebees. One thing that I really liked about this site was that there were pictures of all of the food items. I like to be able to see what something looks like before I order it. The site uses the appropriate colors and font to match the restaurant. The Applebees website it the site that I have been referencing while creating our final web site.
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Pollstar
Pollstar is a website dedicated to concert listings around the world. Its horizontal menu can take the user to their personal account, concertwire, photos, reviews, hotstar and store. Underneath the menu is a thick search bar where the consumer may type in an artist, band, venue or city when searching for a possible event to attend. Under the find an event rectangle is an eye catching scroll bar, which is constantly moving to the left with average ticket prices.
Below that is Pollstar’s featured section which holds four upcoming events which constantly switch to show equal importance and display a paragraph of text matched with a headline and photograph. From the the user can scroll down more to find recent listings, concertwire, site activity, latest photos, recent hotstars and most viewed.
The website does not use an overload of colors, instead they keep it cool with tones of blue and black and white. The text is also simplistic with the exception of the logo and the company catch phrase “The Concert Hotwire” which is in a handwritten font.
Pollstar’s layout is evenly distributed in an organized grid. They make the website easy for the patron to find what they want to find within it in a timely fashion.
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Bi Weekly Review
For my review my group is doing a film website about a short film that one of our group members are working on. This short film is about dreams and reality. How they correspond and make life difficult and not as easy as people think. I have reviewed the website dreams.com. dreams.com is a very different site compared to the typical website in todays world. dreams.com has lots of variety and links to how dreams work. It is very understandable to what dreams.com is trying to get across to the viewer. The colors of the text and links really stand out. They are a bright blue and the links are on the side of the page and at the top of the page. With all the detail and links the front page really has not to much going on. To navigate more and find information out, you have to click on the links and further they take you to a different page with more information about dreams and how you can learn more. When you click the links they take you to a numerous sites and really has nothing to do with dreams.com Dreams.com is a guideline for dreams and it gives you basic information and makes you look into the links to gain more information. Besides the links are really not that helpful. Dreams.com has a good layout and eye catching color to grab the viewers attention when they enter the site. Also the image that is used on the front page is well placed and creates a flow and makes dreams.com come to life. Dreams.com isn’t the best site, but with the images, links and color and can hold its own and make the point across to the viewer.
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Vans Warped Tour Website
The Vans Warped Tour is a summer concert series that travels around the United States. With over 90 bands and 40 stops, this is one of the largest series in the country. All the music is based around the rock sound. The target audiences are teenagers and young adults. This website is relevant to research when building another website dealing with summer concert series.
The Vans Warped Tour website is set up in a traditional setup with links along the top of the page. This is an easy navigation technique for visitors to use. The navigation bar is crowded though as they are 11 link listed across. Once a visitor click on one of the links, they are taken to the new page. There is no bread crumbing and the navigation bar still remains on the top of the page. To return to a previous page, the visitor must use the back button provided by the Internet browser or re-click on a link up top. The right side of the page is filled with advertisements for the website to create profit.
The color scheme and illustrations of the Vans Warped Tour change every year. Currently the overall theme older styled relying on ornamentations and a muted color palette of greys. There are accent colors of red, blue and gold. Some may not find the artwork relevant to the theme of rock music and summer. The color scheme and artwork is not eye catching and has no sense of hierarchy.
Because the Vans Warped tour is aimed toward younger generation, the website has some cool extra aimed towards them. There is a specific photograph and video section that shows the excitement of previous tours. Once you click on a specific city, you are given more information about attending Warped Tour if it is your first time. There is also an online store for visitors to buy apparel. The online store was not up to date as it included the summer 2011 logo.
The Vans Warped Tour website is a summer concert website that easily displays information about the tour. Visitors can learn more, buy tickets and share their previous experiences. The color scheme changes annually but currently is a muted color palette. Overall this website is valuable to review for anyone making a summer concert series website.
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Review of The French Gourmet Restaurant – “http://www.thefrenchgourmet.com/”
After careful review of The French Gourmet restaurant, the overall design is somewhat similar to the one my group and I are currently in the process of creating. Although ours is for the fusion of both French and Chinese cuisine, the layout has aspects that greatly compares to ours. But, enough about my website, here is my review of The French Gourmet webpage:
Located in San Diego, California, The French Gourmet goes that extra mile to “taste the delicious difference.” Their amenities include dining, catering, a bakery, and a wine boutique. Some positives that the website has is its color palette, font style, and navigation. Some negatives that the website unfortunately has is some significant clutter.
POSITIVES
Color Palette – The royal blue and fire truck red accents truly add to the sandy yellow background color. The navigation tabs are located at the top of the webpage in the royal blue color, with a white font. The headers are all in royal blue, which make them, stand out perfectly against the white divs where the majority of the information lies.
Font Style – As far as the fonts that The French Gourmet uses, the variety seems spot on. Using a basic serif font for the majority of the site, and combining it with the italicized script font for the site’s headers and titles, works extremely well. The two styles compliment one another effortlessly.
Navigation – From a technical standpoint, the webpage is successful. All the links, tabs, and sub-sites work productively. The navigation is easy to use and follow for any age. The drop-down tabs make it simple enough to find exactly where the viewer is going and needs to be.
NEGATIVES
Clutter – The amount of unnecessary clutter the page has is unreal. Take the homepage for instance. At the top of the page, there are a few things that clutter it up. There is a font decrease/increase button, email page button, print page button, and a home page button…even when the user can click on the main logo in the middle to get back to the homepage. The top simply looks cluttered. They could have found better spots for the necessary tabs/buttons, because for the viewer, it is overwhelming. There is also a ton of clutter towards the bottom of the site that can definitely be condensed. The logos of the supporting groups do not have to necessarily be all in a line like that, or even that large. Again, it is overwhelming.
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Restaurant review
I did my bi-weekly review on a restaurant called Ray’s Place. Ray’s Place is a bar/tavern in Kent Ohio. It was one of my favorite places to grab a burger or wings when I lived in Ohio. Firstly on their website their home page is an old image from back when Ray’s first opened up. The section where the image is is a slideshow of images of their foods. Something that caught my eye was how when you go to select a section on the site the box with the title changes colors when you scroll over it. When you go to the different sections, there are multiple sub-sections you can view. For instance under special event it lists multiple events that happen at Ray’s Place. One sub-section that it lists is the Budweiser Clydesdales. Under this section it shows multiple pictures from when they came to visit. One section at the top that catches your attention is the section titled “Memory Lane”. This section takes you back to 1900 when Ray’s started. It has a slideshow of the timeline of Ray’s and also has a video of the story behind Ray’s Place and it’s history. This site is easily accessible and neatly laid out. All the food items that need descriptions have clear and helpful descriptions and their “liquids” page is very well set up into categories and is easy to get to exactly what section you need. Over all I feel like this page is very simple but very effective. I really enjoyed talking a walk down memory lane of one of my favorite dining establishments. I learned more than I ever knew about Ray’s!
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The Club Scene
Since we are doing a club/restaurant for our website, I felt it would be appropriate to look at a few club sites to see their design and how they function. The club site I looked at is called “the Diesel Club Lounge”, http://www.dieselpgh.com/?v=club . The site is very dynamic and interesting to look at, and also includes a radio feature at the top of the site page to show off the club scene. All the tabs and menu items are absolute on the page and then all the information changes underneath the image of the bar. The picture of the bar also changes with each click of a different button. I really enjoy this page and it is very nice and easy to navigate.
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Nastygal.com is a high fashion website, many fashion websites have a white background because many of clothing items are not one consistent color, so therefore there is no clash of colors. It has a very simple header of the title of the website in a cursive typeface. The main focus of the page is the animated slideshow of models wearing the clothes in the middle of the page. There is a simple navigating bar to travel throughout the site. Many fashion websites such as nastygal.com are simple but yet very dimensional. This is a site where one can purchase the clothing so there are many ways to view the item easily. One way is to click and view all the different views of the items or one can use the zoom button over the picture.
For our final project, we want it to look like a high fashion website, simple yet effective. Nastygal.com and many other sites are being a model for us to create a website, but we will put our own spin on the fashion website.
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Bi-Weekly Review 6
For my 6th Bi weekly Review I chose to take a look at some Ice cream shop websites and some brewery sites to compare again the competition.
Bruster’s Ice Cream: Bruster’s is a large ice cream chain store in the Northeast. Their website is very user friendly, with tabs that easily label all the navigation buttons across the top of the screen. The images were surprisingly pixelate for being the website of such a large chain store. The use of color is random at times, but it only works because it is an ice cream website. Overall the website is very clean and well put together, and its easy to operate. Any one from ages 8-70 years old could use it with ease.
Dairy Queen: Everyone has heard of dairy queen. it is the essence of cheap ice cream. (in my opinion). It is your typical basic soft serve with your basic sprinkle toppings. There website was very well put together, more than one would expect. They use a nice animated screen on the main page introduce customers to the eating options. The only problem is, there is a lot going on, on the first page. Eyes can easily get distracted and not no where to go. Besides that, its nice. Like Bruster’s, Dairy Queen used a wide variety of colors on their website.
Yuengling: Yuengling is one of the most famous/ popular beers in the northeast and in pennsylvania. There site started out by making visitors enter in their date of birth to check if they are 21, just as a precaution. After the age check, the site opens up with a big graphic and a horizontal navigation bar. The big thing that stands out, is their color scheme. Its a very neutral brown color complimented by their signature green. The navigation bar at the top worked well, and things loaded faster that most of other sites.
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Ithaca Beer
The Ithaca Beer Company has a multipage website available to people over 21. The homepage gives information about events relating to the beer such as events and news. The navigation is located under the banner at the top of the page, which showcases the different kinds of beers the company brews. Each navigational button has subcategories to answer questions about the company and its products. However, there is no search option which sometimes leads users straight to a desired page. When one of the categories is chosen, it then leads viewers to a page with a list of links to the subcategories anyways. This is not very useful, and could be replaced with a page that summarizes the main category and then gives the options for related topics. The overall design and color scheme The Ithaca Beer Company chose for their site is fitting. The colors remind users the generic color for beer. The background uses a golden brown gradient that uses halftone circles that are a visual representation of head. The navigational links are displayed in the same golden color, and then highlighted in white when scrolled over. The body text is a dark brown like the color of stout.
Though the navigation bar on The Ithaca Beer Company website can lead users to redundant pages, the design concept relates to the product being sold. However, this does not create complete confusion because users are guided on where to go from a list of options per page. The background of halftone circles gives the look and feel of beer in a glass. The appropriate color scheme carries out elements of the beers The Ithaca Beer Company brews. The website though not the easiest for new users to navigate, uses graphics that portray the products in a positive light and show that the company is knowledgable of beer.
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Frienemies on Facebook
EnemyGraph is an app on Facebook that allows users to declare who and what they don’t like. The name “enemy” has the completely opposite meaning of the term “friend” that Facebook chose to use for people users may know and they “like” their interests. The app shows that the site only shows the positives in one’s life, such as who they enjoy being around or doing. That is not the case in real life, because everyone does not “like” everything. There has not been an option to express negative responses on Facebook until the release of this app. It gives more of a truth behind each member of the site. It allows people to show what they dislike in popular culture, and who is not a true friend on the given “friend’s list.”
Declaring someone as an enemy can be bold, but social media seems to give users an easier outlet to express feelings. Declaring a person as an enemy proves more of a relationship than a mere acquaintance. The term “Facebook friend” has very loose meaning to how people know one another in the real world. However, having an enemy option shows more than one side to a person. For instance, instead of a user having to “like” a page titled ‘like if you hate jellyfish,’ the option for becoming the enemy of ‘jellyfish’ is now a much more simplified option.
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fifth bi-weekly review
http://pulpfingers.com/
Pulpfingers has an incredible use of texture combined with a very simple color palette to create a visually pleasing site. There are about three colors used along with a fine grain texture. The navigation is the most important element of the site; it sits at the very top of the page. The most emphasis is placed on the navigation because it is unique in the size of the text and the use of lines attracts the viewer’s attention. This navigation is horizontal and located in the same position as one clicks through the different pages.
http://www.blindpigdesign.com/
Blindpigdesign.com emphasizes the navigation with the dark background and unusual flying pig icon. It is a vertical navigation bar that features a hovering talent, when one hovers over a word the dotted background appears. There is another navigation located further down the page, which consists of social media sites. These sites are represented as icons instead of actual words. This site uses a two-color scheme of white and black with a few shades of gray. The two sections are separated by the different colors; the content page has a white background and the navigation bar has a gray background.
http://www.trailerparktruck.com/
Trailerparktruck.com is an excellent example of a single page website. The navigation bar is located at the top of the page. When one word is clicked, the page scrolls to the location further down on the page. There is an option on the right for the viewer to scroll automatically to the top of the page, which allows the user to click on another word and so on. The secondary navigation is much smaller than the primary one and is tacked on the left side of the page. Again, another page uses icons for social media pages.
http://hellohellohi.com/
hellohellohi.com uses navigation in a very unique way. The main navigation is a horizontal bar settled near the top of the page. This site’s secondary navigation is different, the navigation is scattered across the second half of the page because each page is its own bubble or circle. Shape creates the distinction between the two navigations on this page.
http://www.zappos.com/
A great example of bread crumbing would be zappos.com. The main navigation is located horizontally at the top of the page, while another navigation is on the left in a column. The main navigation does not change but the vertical one does. The vertical navigation becomes more specific as the viewer clicks on a particular label. For example, one clicks on women shoes, then boots, then black, the size. The content of the page changes and there become fewer options for a person to choose from. Along with the differences of change, the two navigations are differentiated by color and shape. The main navigation, which has the most emphasis, consists of a solid blue box. In contrast the vertical navigation is blue font on the white background.
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Bi Weekly Review
Playground Blues
For this blog site the navigation bar is vertical going down the left side. When the cursor is moved over the navigation bar, images appear to be clicked on. This part of the navigation is secondary. The colors of the rainbow run down the side with images accompanying them. The primary navigation is in the center of the page. The links are hi lighted in a blue and when a cursor is run over it, the words will become underlined. This is how one will know that it can be clicked on. After clicking on one of the secondary links, a new pages opens with new information. At the bottom of that new page, there is an arrow that will take you back to the homepage. This navigation is very simple to use. Although the design is very plain, the navigation works well.
jBunti
This site has horizontal and vertical navigation bars. The months run down the side and there is other information that runs horizontal across the top. The design for this site would catch ones attention because of the bright colors and bold shapes. Compared to this last blog reviewed, jBunti could be a bit overwhelming for some people.
Apple
The Apple site is one of the most easiest navigation sites to use. The theme is a monochromatic color scheme. With grey and white tones the site is appealing to the eye. The large font it the top of the navigation bar makes it easy for customers to use. The white and grey color scheme attracts customers to the site.
Polkdesign
When first opening this site, it seems to be very bland and plain. The only two colors used are a crimson red and a cream color as the background. The navigation bar runs horizontally across the top of the of the page. This bar is the only thing on the entire page that has links to it. Many people would find this site boring because of the plain neutral colors and lack of design. It is easy to navigate around but that is all that this site has to offer.
Hopkingdesign
After first opening this site, there are only two lines of text on a black background. The text says click here. After following the navigation, the viewer is taken to another page that shows all of the information and design. the site does not have very much design to it at all. There is just a white background with text on it. Not very appealing at all. The navigation is simple to use, but the design could use some work.
Brittany Miller
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Bi-Weekly Review 5
http://freelanceswitch.com/: This site has both horizontal and vertical navigation. The main navigation is at the top (going horizontally), and is in the gray box. The secondary navigation is within the green box below the main navigation, as well as off to the right side going vertically. The green box has a slight gradient and is given some texture to create a distinction between primary and secondary navigation.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/: The site has mainly horizontal navigation. The primary navigation is at the top, with a gray texture added for distinction purposes. The secondary navigation is below the gray navigation box, and is also horizontal.
http://macrabbit.com/: This site uses only horizontal navigation. It is very simple in that it uses small icons along with text as links. The main navigation at the top is the only navigation throughout the site. All of the icons used have a similar artistic style to them, and when they are clicked they change color and are circled.
http://www.prague-guide.fr/: This site uses vertical navigation. The links are made to look like folder tabs and are given texture for distinction. On other pages, horizontal links are used with no special added texture. When the main tabs are clicked, they change color to show which page the user is on.
http://www.polkdesign.net/: This site utilizes horizontal navigation. The main navigation is flushed left and changes from black to red when hovered/clicked. Other pages use secondary vertical navigation (flushed right).
Four out of five of these sites use horizontal navigation as their primary navigation of choice. They also tend to use vertical navigation as their secondary. Their main navigations tend to be textured, whereas the secondary is not.
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Bi-Weekly Review Navigation
When looking at Hardgraft.com the first thing that you notice is the fixed aspects on the website. For Navigation the left hand side of the website contained links to the different collections and the different categories of good. Because this is a smaller website there is no level of links. For example, it does not say Cases and then list Ipad, Phone, Laptop. Because of the simplicity of this site, they do not have any breadcrumbs for shoppers to use. This site relies on the back button designed by Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome etc. They can use that to return to all products, or if they remember the title, click on the main link again. There is no back arrow link on the page.
Carnation website is an attention grabbing site that utilizes geometric shapes and vivid colors. Although viewers may gravitate towards the site because of this reason, the sites navigation programs may push them away. Carnation does include a banner on the top of the page that leads to links of other pages. The confusing part of the website is that it also scrolls down, and the scrolling is split unto different pages. This is similar to a one-page site. At this point the viewer could be confused if they are supposed to click the links, or scroll through the information to find what they are looking for. Although the website has a good site ID, it is missing noticeable sub-heading that would make the navigation easier. When looking at the actual links and arrows though, they do change colors letting the viewer know that they are clickable.
Genia agency is a foreign website that has a good use of a grid pattern. The navigation is organized well with the site ID clearly identified and the links being along the top of the page. The text and images are aligned in boxes. When scrolling over links, you can clearly identify that they are clickable as they change color, or a vector box appears. Although there is a lot of information, the organization of the website allows it to be readable. There is no bread crumbing on this website so the viewer will have to use the back button provided by the Google Chrome, Safari, etc. or reclick on the link on the top of the page.
Planet propaganda is a website with unique navigation. Although on the top right of the page Method | Work | Blog | About | are listed you initially see these choices in the middle of the page, as soon as the homepage loads. These words are placed in a triangle pattern in the center of the page. The background is a slideshow of images but the links are static. There is no option is scroll so the viewer must click on a link. By keeping the homepage simple, the viewer has less chance of getting confused. Some do use J Query with buttons to send the viewers to new information.
The navigation of Archikon is different than most websites you see today. Although the website is in a different language, the artwork and layout leaves me to believe that this is an architecture website. Instead of having a banner across the top, or left side of the page with links, Archikon places its link randomly on the home page. These links are connected to the site ID with thin white lines. It resembles a scatter map used for brain storming.There are no bread crumbs for the client to use.
http://www.hardgraft.com/#/collection/heritage
http://www.carnationgroup.com/expertise
http://www.agenciagenia.com.br/genia
http://planetpropaganda.com/
http://www.archikonconstructeurs.nl/
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Bi-Weekly Review
inBloom: A viewer that uses this site would be very pleased with the easy use of navigation. inBloom is setup with a unique design and the color of the background really makes the page come alive. When someone clicks on a tab on the page, it wont open up a new window, which is nice. This feature makes this site easier for the r people to navigate. The color scheme is very simple and effective and easy on the the images and links around the page. Overall, inBloom is very nice. There is always a tab to go back to the page previous page which is a big help to alot of people. Makes for the navigation to be simple and to the point.
Hello Color: This website has a very creative layout, as the title says, but it is very different than most websites. Hello ColorThere has very little stuff going on the first page which makes it easy to find where to go because of the simple introduction. This website also uses a clicking navigation bar. The one thing this site is lacking, is a better style and color scheme. The colors are very silent, which makes it easy to loose attention when browsing. The site is also just to plain and boring. Nothing is really occurring on HelloColor. Needs to have more going on to keep the viewer awake.
Apple: Apple is one of the easiest websites to use and figure out. Everything is laid out in a good area. It’s large font on a navigation bar at the very top of the screen makes Apple sytand out to most of the different sites. Although there is a very minimal use of color, Apple still makes the site very unique. Even though color is not used that much, Apple still gets the message across to the people. Everything they design is based off a black and grey color scheme. The only problem with the site is that when you go through tabs you have to click on different navigation menus. Most people are used to it, so it does not really pose to much of a problem.
Hopking Design: Opening the website, there was no information to be found on it. Just based on the layout, it was very nice and simple and got to the point very quickly. There is a horizontal navigation bar across at the top right. This is really only the The simplicity of this website makes it very easy to navigate. Although it is easy to use, that doesn’t mean its designed simple, it is well put together. Although there was no content, Hopking Design still has style and makes for an interesting website.
Playground Blues : The first thought of this website do not really catch my eye. It has a very standard welcoming design with a message to the people on the front page. This site also uses a vertical navigation bar. It is very hard to find at first. Its located on the left hand side and very unnoticeable. Once you enter a page, there is no way to get back except using the back button on the browser. The color scheme is very bland besides the design on the front, but it works well! The only problem is that there needs to be a better use of the layout and style on the page, it is a little too basic and really has not much thought in it at all.
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