Chris Brown - Design Investigation Boards

Chris Brown | DIGITAL MEDIA DESIGNER Design investigation - web design

Brief/initial RESEARCH

01The brief we were given was to look into and area of design that interests us to help us develop our knowledge of the industry and hopefully gain experience in what is required to do these jobs and what it is like to do it.

I chose to look into web design as it is something that interests me and a very realistic career possibility so it would be interesting to look into it in more depth.

I thought that the best way to further my understanding would be to look into already existing websites and why they look like they do and what makes them good.

I wanted to stick to mainly design websites and design portfolios as this is what I would be creating if I was to and I could apply any knowledge that I will gain from this research to my own website and those that I make in the future.

I already do quite a lot of website design in my spare time, but I have never really sat down and thought about what makes a website good and why I make them in the particular way/style that I do and the functionality I give them. I also wanted to find out if this is an area that I would like to head into after graduating, as it is probably on of my favourite types of design to create as it stands at the moment.

deep creative chris woods rainfall daffinsonI looked at design agency ‘DEEP’s website and I instantly liked the simplicity of it, it easily gets the information across and uses a simple two column layout to split up the content. This makes it extremely easy to read and the navigation is obviously separate and doesn’t intrude into the content of the site. I think it is an obvious and easy way to differentiate between the content.

I am not too keen on their colour scheme used on the site, the dark grey background makes the site look a tad boring, especially as it is just flat colour. However, this does make the work stick out from their site and the occasional use of the neon pink colour also makes the sight more interesting and helps draw your eyes to the most important parts of the site, which is why they have also placed pink boarders around their work.

I also looked at freelancer Chris Wood’s portfolio site, which I think is the same as previously, very simple, but gets across the most important content straight away. I do however think that this site is a bit small, even once it has centred on the page. Also with the whole site being black and white it does look a bit boring, you definitely need a bit of colour.

Finally, another site that I looked at that I liked was Rainfall Daffinsons site, featuring a nice and simple design and interface using simple and plain colours that put the most emphasis on the name followed by the work, which is laid out in a grid.

I think this is a nice design and shows that minimalist can work wonders in web design if used properly.

I would quite like to employ this use of white space and simplicity in my website as I normally overcomplicate mine.


contacts

02

After doing some research I whittled down the Freelancers/Design Agencies that I would like to try and contact to get some insight into various aspects of their job and why they do it as I think this would help greatly for getting an insight into what it is like to be in the web design industry.

I wanted to contact a range of different design studios and freelancers, big and small, to get a different range of responses and insights as I think these people in different positions will have a different perspective on everything. I have listed the designers/studios that I tried contacting.

D-Boy Designs

http://www.dboy-designs.com/identity.php

Web Design/Branding Studio one by an individual dealing with most music clients, but very creative designs.

Impala

http://www.impala-webstudio.fr/

French Web Design and Print Studio from France. May not get a reply as they are french - was still worth a try as they are very good at what they do.

Icon Revolution (To

http://www.iconrevolution.com/

Web and Print Design Freelancer working mainly for record labels. Fairly young so would be interesting to see his views and how he got to where he is now

FI

http://www.f-i.com/

Huge design company with clients ranging from AOL to Google. Most likely to get a reply from these as they have a dedicated questions email aimed at internships/students etc.

Sons Of Nero

http://www.sonsofnero.com/web/web.php

Two freelancers working together under the name of Sons of Nero. Doing complete design solutions mostly for bands/record labels they have to design everything - cover art, t shirts and usually, websites. There designs are normally seamless but very creative.

http://indofolio.com/

UI/Interface for Web Designer, that employs the latest cutting edge technologies (HTML 5/CSS 3 etc) to make his sites stand out from the rest. I think that his sites are very abstract but still extremely functional.

dboY-DESIGNS

ICON REVOLUTION

INDOFOLIO SONS OF NERO

fi

IMPALA

I then had to think about what I was going to ask in the emails I sent out.

I mainly wanted to find out things that aren’t too obvious or things that you would need to be working in the industry for a while to know or from personal experience.

The questions that I went with in the end are as follows:

- What made you want to work in the Web Design Industry/How did you start out?

- Do you enjoy your job?

- (If Freelance) How do you go about getting work?

> How do you go about advertising yourself (if at all)

- What do you do to stand out from the competition, as web design is a huge field?

- (If employed by one) What design studios look for in an prospective employees?

- Do you only get involved in Designing Websites or do you do Development also?

> Do you think it is better to just do one, or both?

- (If not already) Do you want to branch out from doing just Web Design?

- What is the hardest thing about your job?

- Do you think now is a good time to be working in/be starting to work in the Web Design industry

- Who are your biggest inspirations?

- How has the industry changed since you started and where do you think it is headed?

> What Trends can you see for 2011?

- What is the most fun/favorite piece of work you have done and why?


Role of a web designer

03

I then thought it would be useful for my brief to look more specifically into the role/jobs required to be done by a Web Designer and how they go about doing what they do. As I already do some Web Design freelance it was be interesting to learn more about things that I am not already doing or things I am doing wrong or could be doing better/things that can speed up my workflow.

Firstly I looked into where they start when dealing with a client.

It seemed that most Web Designers give a questionnaire to their clients to get the most information possible out of them so they can make something the most relevant that they can and won’t encounter and have to make too many changes down the line. This is an easy way of seeing how long a project is going to take in advance so is useful for working out costings/requirements and wether you can actually achieved what is being asked.

After using one of these questionnaires, you can put the information from your together and plan out what sections of the site you have to make and any advanced features you want to include like CMS, Advanced Interactive Elements.

An interesting thing I found that a lot of people said that I never really think is to only use technologies and features that benefit your target audience/users experience and don’t just add them for no reason as this will hinder the browsing experience.

Once you have proposed to the client what you are to make and request any last information that may have changed and any logo’s/colourschemes etc you can move onto making the site.

If found that there are a few things that I don’t really think about, or know about, that I should be using when designing a site that I will now start to do when building sites:

- Colour Theory

- Mathmatic/Visual Rules (Golden Radio, Rule of Thirds, 960 Gridder etc)

- Visual Hierarchy

- The Gestalt Principle

- Minimalisim/Using Negative Space for effect

- Specific Layouts (F Layout, Z Layout)

I looked into each of these in depth to see how they would effect what I am making and how bigger impact on my workflow they would have and the benefits of using them/using them correctly bring.

After doing all of this in depth research, I think I definitely prefer designing web sites and it seems to be that in the work world that you either do one or the other, Design or Development. In the industry rarely do you get people doing both, as one is completely design based and the other is code based and it is very hard to get to a good enough standard in both and keep up to date with the latest trends and developments.

I think also knowing about development also changes your view on designing (or mine at least) as you don’t want to go too outside of the box as you are thinking about wether it is possible/easy to make what you are proposing with the design and features that you are suggesting.

Also, I have found that because of my research I will stick mainly to designing or head into the design industry and not the development industry but I will still keep up to date and keep a basic knowledge of development going so I can understand the processes and what is possible.


Industry/client experience

04

I thought that it would be good to get some Industry experience of what it is like to work in the industry, both as a Freelancer and for a Design Agency/Studio. I wanted to see how a professional goes about their day and their workflow and how they go about dealing with clients and answering briefs. I also wanted like to see in person the environments they work in and the people they work with and be part of it.

During this project, I actually had the opportunity to take on some client work and although I was pushed for time with uni work I was very keen to further my experience of working for a client and working freelance.

Throughout this process I put some of my research into practise when thinking about how I was to approach the client and when designing the website.

I used the standard procedure of writing a list of questions for the client to get all of the information out of them and then moved on to working with colour

schemes and also designing a logo.Once this was finalised, I then went on to start designing the site. As the client wanted certain specific features I had to take these into account and how the user would navigate these and how they would be displayed for maximum effect.

I was pleased with the outcome and I enjoyed the process of working on it freelance. I will continue to do freelance sites in my spare time as it is a good way to gain experience and build up my portfolio.

However, working freelance is one thing but I don’t think it matches working with others in the environment of a design agency or studio. I have been looking into different places and what their studios are like and their day to day activities and the facilities that they have and use.

I would like to experience this so I have been looking at possibly applying for a work placement or an internship.


OUTCOME

05

Alongside this research I was thinking about possibilities for my outcome. I was thinking of possibly making a Web Design for a proposal of a site that summarises and displays my research in a nice way, almost like a quick guide for web designers, but I thought that this has probably been done many times before and I thought I could put my newly found knowledge to better use and to something more worthwhile/interesting.

I also thought I could apply everything I had learnt to my personal portfolio website, especially as some of the sites which I analysed to begin with, which inspired me to look at certain aspects of web design, were portfolio sites. Also, if I want a chance or getting into the possible work placements/internships that I am thinking of applying for I need a very strong and well laid out portfolio to catch their attention and show my design skills in general and my body of work.

I then created this website design through a number of revisions. I think I put all of the knowledge I gained to use and created something that fits its purpose, functions well and still looks good. It still probably needs a bit of work before being built, especially on the typography but nonetheless I am still very pleased with the result and will continue to develop the design in time for applying for placements and it will also help me to get work.


EVALUATION

06I think that this project was extremely worthwhile as I have learnt so much about web design in general, and I thought I knew the majority already.

I have a much better insight into what is required to work within the web design industry and what it is like to work in it and what jobs you would be undertaking.

If I were to go about contacting people again I would give it more time as I only recently sent the emails out as I was unsure about the questions to ask and I was also planning on possibly making a nicely designed web questionnaire (which was another option for my outcome) to send to the designers/studios - but when I decided to design a website I then had to send emails instead not leaving much time. I also think they may not have got back because they get lots of things like mine and I had to be more creative/stand out. So I might try and contact some more in a more creative way to grab their attention, or I may hear back from the ones that I have already sent out.

I also learnt a lot about web design theory and put some things to use in my final design that I have never used or consciously thought about using. This definitely made for a different design experience but it also means eve-rything just works together in size relativity and colours and you don’t have to think about it quite so much.

Chris Brown - Design Investigation Boards

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