Project 1 Preliminary

[CarnutianDragon]

Hello everyone, here are the two roughs for my website!

For my website I chose to go with a forest/nature theme. My first concept is dark, in both appearance and my use of color. I decided to play around with contrast, using a mostly dark background with highlights of white and light gray in the main image and font color. I also decided to use a visually interesting, yet readable font, in its various styles, throughout my design. This website was heavily inspired by other black and white websites due to their elegance and high contrast. Here are some of the websites that inspired this design:

https://www.roystonlabels.co.uk/
https://onlystudio.co.uk/

My second concept is whimsical and quite a bit lighter. For this design I chose a soft nature background, accompanied by a readable script font for the larger type, as well as basic Times New Roman for the smaller text. I feel that this design is a lot more straight forward, focusing on me and my creations instead of my interests. Here are some of the websites that inspired this design:

http://kingdomfarmsindy.com/
https://www.magicoflapland.net/

[chaytothet]

Hello!

I really like these designs, the one with the forest background looks super inviting, so I personally would go with that! Unless you wouldn't like to be inviting, you know, to each their own

Super awesome job on both layouts though, I like the curved lettering on the second one!

Design on.

[selvster5000]

I totally agree with you. The second one is very whimsical and inviting!
SO I like this one. I very fond of background picture and the overall composition
nicely laid out. The only thing I would suggest is maybe a soft yellow for
the headline/link text color and instead of white.

Great work though!!!

[susielang]

Hi,

I am really liking the second layout. It looks warm and inviting and I really like the background and layout. The imagery on the first one is interesting. Overall, I think the second one is working better. Also, like the typefaces you chose.

[Peelio]

Hello Sarah,

Your first homepage gives me a relaxing-by-a-campfire-fire-talking-with-Poe kind of vibe. Which is sweet. I especially like the word definition, which adds to the dark vibe of the page. (The cat ipsum is great.) Typo on "Personal", but I'm sure you would have caught that sooner or later. The logo you have is neat and goes a long ways to tying this one together.

The second homepage is visually interesting. There is a strong theme and feeling of nature. The typefaces are creative and fit well with the nature theme. All of the elements in the design are aligned well, looks sharp. If anything, maybe have the text size of "nemophilist" and the definition be smaller or more similar to the body text size. I do prefer the second one, but both are very strong designs.

[Instructor]

Nicely done Sarah. You're now the third person I've come across on this project who has two equally good ideas. Nicely done! Have fun picking between them.

I do like your logo icon. It looks like a Rorschach test, or a planform view of Star Lord's ship from Guardians of the Galaxy.

The first one is kind of spooky and foreboding like you're a cryptid hunter. It gives off an X-Files/Millennium/Stranger Things vibe. It has an old, peaty quality to it. I like the use of the distressed typewriter font. It helps with the spooky and old feeling you're looking to establish. Good use of different type sizes to establish hierarchy as well. Your margins are also just about perfect. Everything has a nice amount of room to breathe without fragmenting. Your navigation is large and easy to use; well placed too.

I'd widen the paragraph block slightly so that you get a little more room on the bottom where your bodycopy notches into the skull. Basically so that there is equal spacing on the right edge and bottom.

Your second design has a much more warm, inviting feel. I can practically hear the birds chirping. The serif type and script type are working well together. They play off each other so nicely. Nice choice of background image as well. It gives the website a new dawn feel. I like that all your content is basically contained in a cigar band in the middle. Nice use of transparency too. It allows just a hint of the image to show through to warm your overall design. Your top navigation is working well. It's easy to see and use.

Add a little more room around all the edges of your transparent white box so your type is not crowded at the sides and you have equal margins top, bottom, left, and right. I'd also add a bit more gutter between your columns to establish some margin there as well.

Great work!

[Pearl_Underwood]

Hi Sarah,
Your designs are nice, however, I prefer the outdoors, and peace. I feel your second design is really inviting, and I love the circle around your photo, and the info laid out with it! Great job!

[Kyler_Rose]

Both of your Website Templates are really good looking. Between the two I would say I Like the first image better. Starting with the first image. It has a nice composition and everything is balanced extremely well. The Only this I would change for this first template is the body text font. The font is very hard to read, I cant tell if it is a different font or if it is just bad image quality. Either way double check your body font and make sure it is the one you want to use. Now for the second Image, I would change the position of your logo and your Nav bar. Play around with it more and see where you can move them around.

[Ariesboxsye]

Your first one jumps out to me more, feels like there is an overarching idea to put yourself into this over the second design. Only issue I can point out is the size of your body font, maybe even is placement might need to be played with more to find that comfortable place.

[Jose_M]

CarnutianDragon,
The forest theme home page is the one to go with in my opinion because the layout and composition work very well and is friendly to the eye. The one thing to change is the script font style for the links and the word "nemophilist".


Jose Macias.