ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design

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Monthly Review #2: Ian James Cox’s One Page Site

For this monthly review, I have chosen to review Ian James Cox’s one page site. Ian James Cox is a freelance digital designer who has worked with many different companies and projects.

I feel that his site is very dynamic and creative in its own little ways. The colors work very well together and the texturing is excellent. His site is pretty much primarily monochromatic, featuring neutral colors of gray, white, and black. However, there are some little bits of color with each piece of work he animates along his site. Those little pieces of work have bright and vibrant colors, but do not seem to take away from the site. They do stand out though, which is good. The bright colors evoke an energetic emotion, especially with the BBC CBeebies where it is a bunch of bright yellow that is animated to a degree. The little bits of color really add to the otherwise neutral, monochromatic site. In my opinion, the little bits of bright color make the site more attractive and want to pull me in more. The colors are not obnoxious or extremely distracting as well.

This site also features texturing. The background looks to be a crumpled piece of paper kind of texture. It helps give a dimensional feel to it so it’s not like it’s only text against a gray background. There is one solid black line that appears drawn by a Sharpie throughout the site. It evokes a sense of movement and excitement, awaiting for what will come up next as the line whips around when scrolling. This Sharpie-like drawn line makes it look like the line is really drawn on paper with the textured background.

Animation wise, the movements are smooth and precise with the scrolling. All the user has to do is scroll downward to move the page along, even to make it go right or left. However, I do feel that the animation for scrolling has gone too far. When it started to go left or right, I automatically wanted to scroll left or right rather than up and down. Obviously it did not get me anywhere though and I figured out quickly that you had to keep scrolling downward to get it to advance. The benefit of the doubt is that if you do not feel like scrolling, there is a small menu on the left side of the page with links that you can click to do to different parts of the site that otherwise you would be scrolling down to. The buttons are very well done for the most part. I wish there was something that would happen when you hover on the links though so you know they are links. However, when you click on the links, they do highlight themselves when they navigate to those parts.

The fonts are very easy to read, and are fun. They look as though they have been handwritten with a marker so they blend well with the overall theme of the site. The site elements that make the entire site easy to scan, read, and understand the content are the illustrations/animations that go along with each piece of work Ian James Cox has done, and the color scheme that brings out different elements that he wants to emphasize.

Overall, this site of Ian James Cox’s is a very dynamic one for a one page site. It has great elements that make it fun and innovative. It is a very creative site for a portfolio site and definitely has some eye candy.