Rational For Web Design
When thinking about what to do for my web design project I wanted to create a web site for the organization I used for my poster project. This organization was Prevent Child Abuse America. After looking through different sites launched on the Internet, I decided to make my web design project on Prevent Child Abuse New York. This segment connects with me because I am from New York.
When trying to find images, I didn’t want to have an extremely sad site. But as one goes through the pages, I think they make a transition from sadness to hope and happiness. (one begins on the home page and turns to the about page where they can find out what prevent child abuse does and why it is so important.) The images used for these pages were a little more depressing because I wanted the message of child abuse to come across to the viewer and portray the severity of it. Once one gets to the you can help page, the pictures lighten up and become filled with hope – hence the all white background rather than the black. Moving to the donate page, I found images of happy children to look at the viewer when they are deciding to donate. Lastly, the contact page just has information and a logo of Prevent Child Abuse.
On each page I used Arial as the font. This was a very clean and crisp font and easy to read which was perfect for my pages. On the navigation bar on each page, I wanted a different fact or bit of information on the bottom to give a unique spin to each page. The search bar and the social networking icons remain on every page in hope viewers would follow the organizations twitter page, Faceook page, etc. On the last page, which is the contact page, the information on the left side is regarding wristbands and getting the wristband to support the organization. For every information section on each page, I included an arrow to make it stand out to the viewer as well. The navigation bar highlights the specific page a viewer is currently on with the darker box around the name of the page. I thought this was a good way to make it stand out. Originally, I used an effect to create a navigation bar that looked like buttons, but I thought this created a stronger way to navigate through the web pages.
For the layout of how I decided to arrange the type on each page, for the home and about page I lined it up with the navigation bar pointing to which page it was. However, for the you can help page, the image of the boy I thought was much more powerful than the words so I decided to line up the words with the top of my navigation bar. Similarly, I did the same thing with the donate page and the contact page and lined it up with the top of the navigation bar too.
These are my reasons for making the decisions I did regarding my web design project and how I came to my final product.
Dayglow Magazine Project Escape Rational
When we were assigned this project it took me a very long time to decide on what to do. I kept trying to think of something that would look good graphically but for some reason was having a very difficult time. Last month, I went to this concert called Dayglow and I really thought it would be a great magazine idea. The colors and graphics involved in all of the pictures are exciting that made me settle on the idea. I went through many different stages of creating this magazine until I came to my finalized version. Looking through different images on the main Dayglow website I thought beginning with a large image of The Devil would be a great way to introduce the concert. I named my title of the magazine Escape, because entering Dayglow is a true escape from reality. I began with a cover of splatter paint but it didn’t bring the “Dayglow” message across. I then found this image of the man covered in paint with lights, in his own world – which is just what Dayglow is about: escaping reality and turning into the music. I added the headline on my cover “Enter Dayglow” as an introduction into the magazine to give readers a reason to want to open up the first page.
I wanted to have the same theme throughout my magazine of the drippy paint and Technicolor’s all throughout. With the contortionist artist on my next spread, I thought this was a good way to represent the different types of things that are presented at the concert. My third spread, I decided to add it because I loved that picture of the man covered in paint, balloons, and spraying mist into the air. I thought this summed up Dayglow and was a good way to end the magazine. My last page, on my back is just an ad for Dayglow 3D. I decided to use this ad specifically because my whole magazine is about Dayglow, and then ending with the 3D ad in a way looks into the future of Dayglow and what is next to come.
The fonts that I used took me a while to find also because I wanted something that really made people think of Dayglow and attach the font to the theme of the magazine. I found Charlemagne Std for my title page because I thought it really stood our and had a bit of a drip on the edges which could be represented as paint. My body font is Chaparral Pro and my pull quotes and headers are Texton Pro. I wanted a simple and clean font for my body font that still stood out to the readers and that is why I chose Chaparral Pro. Texton Pro I thought was similar to the title font of Charlemagne Std, but a little different which was good to separate it. For my beginning introduction spread for the “Lights, Pant, Music” I found BlairMdITC TT and aligned it left because it reminded me of other music articles and concerts.
I came across this magazine spread and thought it was very graphically well put together. The images are put on the page in difference shapes, coming from different angles of the spread. The way they were placed on the page makes a lot of sense because of the type of photo it is. They work with the location and speed of how the snowboarder is going down the mountain. It is almost as if the magazine page is following the snowboarder down the slope. I also really liked how the text is spaced, aligned and broken up with the images throughout the page.
Here is the image:
i came across this business card and thought it was very unique and creative. it’s clearly for a yogo professional and that is completely portrayed from this idea of “get stretchy.” the holes to put your fingers in is a cute/unique touch
i came across this business card and thought it was very unique and creative. it’s clearly for a yogo professional and that is completely portrayed from this idea of “get stretchy.” the holes to put your fingers in is a cute/unique touch that makes the business card stand out.
Every year, my sorority puts together a philanthropy event called Build-A-Backpack. In this event, we have other houses participate and come put together a backpack – filled with school supplies that we then donate to a local school that has underprivileged children. All of the money we raise is then donated to our national philanthropy Prevent Child Abuse America. I decided to create a poster to advertise our event. At first I wasn’t sure how to do it and got some advice to make the poster appeal to children. Through a lot of different renovations I came to my final poster. It is simple, and uses a chalkboard font that hopefully will connect with children. Originally, I traced a backpack image I located on the internet, but was having a lot of difficulty with the size of the image so I decided to create my own backpack and photograph it. I used markers, to outline the letters of my sorority Sigma Delta Tau. The whole poster is placed on lined paper that I created to make it look like notebook paper.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4[/youtube]
I came across this video and thought it was insanely interesting and amazingly cool! Every graphic in the video is a separate image the artist Muto painted on the wall and fast forwarded each image to make it look like a real video. Watching the video you can see his erases and where each new image begins.
I found this red hot chili steaming image tutorial of how to create this image step by step in photoshop. I thought this was extremely interesting because it literally is completely made in photoshop without any external images being used. The tutorial says step by step instructions on how to create this image and is and could be very helpful with our poster projects.
This week we had to start thinking about our poster project — something of importance to us we want to advertise and create a poster for. Every year, my sorority does a philanthropy called Build-A-Backpack where, with the participation of other houses in the greek community, help put together backpacks for a local school of underprivileged children. The money that we raise by building the backpacks is then donated to our national philanthropy – prevent child abuse in america. By either using a design we have used in the past to create tshirts for this event, or creating my own knew design, I hope to create a poster that is inspiring to get people involved and informative about our event.
With that being said, I came across these two posters above. Each of them really connected with me. The first poster, titled Water Balloon Toss: It’s just that intense, I thought was hysterical. I am a very competitive person and a flaw of mine is that I sometimes tend to take things too seriously. I thought this poster summed up many experiences I have faced. The simplest things are always able to become “that intense” and this poster exaggerates the humility behind people’s seriousness in the world and kind of made me think, ya know what, relax, whatever. That’s why I thought this poster was great.
I decided to include the second poster of the forks too because our society today is so focused on being “unique” and being “your own person.” When I came across this poster I really just thought it was important for everyone to see. Being unique is a characteristic a lot of people “need” to possess – or hope to possess. Many feelings are, I can’t be a follower, so I have to find something unique about myself and flaunt it. (after all, any application you may fill out needs to express something different or unique about YOU to make you stand out, right?) This poster, was just the opposite of that. “Unique: Just because you are unique does not mean you are useful” was an extremely comical way to turn society around. Being your own person is important because everyone should be able to stand up for themselves and make their own decisions, but when it possess’ someone’s life to be completely different than everyone, being unique can fail and turn you into being a poser. As the poster represents, it “does not mean you are useful” but because you are unique.
I just really thought these two posters were inspiring, comical, and made me think about deeper meanings behind them.
