Tracing Image....Round 1!

Wireframes

The restaurant's website that I have chosen to re-design is Fosters Bar and Grill. Fosters is a really nice place to go and eat and hangout with friends, but their website is kind of on the scary side!! I've decided to keep things pretty simple for the site. Here my wireframe ideas that I am playing around with....

"Becoming a Graphic Designer"

Our reading assignment in Senior Seminar was in Becoming a Graphic Designer by Steven Heller & Teresa Fernandes. After reading, we where to decide on what design specialties we would like to pursue in once we get into the real world. I have to say that I was pretty interested in all of them. I believe book design would have to be my favorite (at least right now). I believe one reason why I like this area of design is because I love to read. Whenever I have the time I enjoy lounging around and reading a good book! I always enjoy looking at the design of books too! I love going into book stores and looking at book covers and flipping through the pages to see what kind of paper is used, and see if the text looks fun and easy to read (that sounds weird, I know). I have only had one project so far where I have designed a book cover but I really enjoyed it. I like how you can put your own creativity and style into it, but at the same time you are still restricted to certain things because of the author, type, etc. I enjoy working with type too which is another reason why I like book design. It is not just limited to designing the cover, there is also the interior design. There are also different categories that you can specialize in when designing books. There are text books, children's books, novels, etc. I would have to say I also like the fact that the majority of the time, the design of the book sales the book!

Corporate design is an area that I have gotten a lot of experience in, not only through class projects, but also through what I guess you would call side jobs. I like making identities for companies. I find it fun to be able to create a brand and put it on different things. While you have the consistency, everything you put it on still has its own style.

Another area of interest would be advertising. Advertising is everywhere and anywhere you look! In today's society, company's and organizations thrive off of their advertisements. There is always going to be a need for an advertisement designer. What I like about advertising is that designers have to always be unique. I love designs that are clever, or so simple that no one else would have ever thought of it. I feel like I would like advertising even more if I got into motion design (or commercials).

There are a couple of other areas that I would like to have the chance to experience someday. Music/ CD design would be fun. I think the reason I like this is because its kind of similar to book design, in the sense that you can add your own person style and creativity, and there are also different genres of music just like there are different types of books. Music design also involves a lot of type as well. Interactivity (or web design) is something I am interested in also. But seeing how I'm just now in my first web design class, I want to learn a little more about what's involved in this. Hopefully, after I get a little knowledge and experience in it, it will be something that I will enjoy too.

~Senior Seminar Agenda~

In Senior Seminar we've been looking over everyone's work to make our portfolios top knotch! (long process by the way!) After my work was looked over, I got an idea about what I should use in certain interviews and what I should not use. I have a lot of work to do on all of my stuff though (no surprise there). I think that I will pace myself by working on at least one project a week. If they seem pretty simple to fix, then I'll make it two a week. I want to get all of my projects to where I am 100% pleased with them (I think that's possible..haha). While I'm working on everything, I also want to make sure I know how to talk about them. Some of my projects I feel comfortable presenting while others are not so easy for me to present. I want to make sure when I'm in a interview I can just speak about them naturally, so I don't get suck and have that awkward moment of silence!!! But if I stick to doing this with at least one project a week I feel that my portfolio will be pretty strong in the end.

Word it!

This month's Word It word was "Back." Being a graphic designer and all I've learned the hard way that you should always back up your work! ALWAYS!!! So for the word "back" I decided to represent my life! ....the USB, aka: my back up!

Unsuccessful Websites.....

Soooo....it was interesting to look for unsuccessful websites.  Some of the ones that I found to be pretty bad are....

MYSPACE!!! I absolutely hate myspace!  It used to be pretty cool when it was simple.  Now they have added every little application that they possibly could think of.  It is so overwhelming, and I do not like to use it anymore.  It also annoys me that there is so much stuff that people can add to their pages to make them look so cluttered!! The site is not very easy to use either when it should be.  For example....if I want to find a friend, I can't just type in their name like I can on Facebook.  Their "username," or how they have it listed on their page has to be typed in or their email....I usually do not know that stuff!! So it makes it impossible to find.

Wikipedia is another site that I just do not understand.  It is supposed to me an online encyclopedia, but I don't understand why it allows users to add or make changes to the information.  It is nice, however, that this site is offered in so many languages, but that is pretty much (in my opinion) they only good thing about it.  There is so much going on on this site....and its stuff that I really don't care to know about.  The site is also kind of confusing and frustrating to use.  I just don't like this site.

So I know I wasn't supposed to but I googled "badly designed websites."  After looking around for a bit, I found Tyra Banks' website.  This site drives me nuts with all of the flashy animation mess!  Everywhere you click there is something going on.  I don't enjoy so much motion picture stuff on one page....especially if I don't want to watch it to start with! 

WORD IT!

So underconsideration.com has a thing called "Word It" where designers can send in something that represents the the monthly word they have given. The word for August was "hairy"....here's what I came up with:I was inspired by one of my friends who always jokes that he has hair...just in the wrong places!! hahaha (he doesn't have much where he needs it...on top of his head!)

Reading Assignment #2...

Homework assignment was to read pages 22-37 in The Principles of Beautiful Web Design and pages 20-29 in Don't Make Me Think.  Here are the questions I came up with after doing the readings....

1. What is the difference between "fixed-width" and "liquid-width" layouts?

2. What are some things that should be considered, or things that the client should be asked, before starting to design a website?

3. What are the three most common kinds of layouts used when referring to navigation placement?

Answers:

1. Fixed-Width: Can appear to be small/dwarfed in larger browser windows, does not have a horizontal scroll bar, the designer has more control over how an image floated within the content will look, allows for planned white space, narrower text blocks improve readability.  Liquid-Width: Has a horizontal scroll bar, adapts to most screen resolutions and devices, reduces scrolling, text spanning a wide distance is more difficult to read, more difficult to execute successfully, can cause a lack of (or awkward) white space.

2. What kinds of content do they want to provide on the site? How much content do they want to provide? Do they have a consistent logo that brands their company?

3. Left-column navigation, Right-column navigation, Three-column navigation.