project_2_final_jcowan

[Fatkid53]

https://www.grc175.com/student/spring-2022/james-cowan/

So, here we go, as noted in the subject this is my project 2 final. My creative process with this site was to construct a UI friendly site to display the projects of this class with a little bit of fat kid style in the illustrations. First for my back-ground which is programmed through the css is entitled "Tako's Revenge" the purpose behind this twisted work of art is to provoke a response for any person who even stumbles across the site. The concept of the artwork is that "what if one of the sentient beings we share this weird spinning ball of atoms with decided to fight back?" and so one of the most gauche statements a human can make is swallowing another being whole as a fad. I used 65% opacity and an absolute position in the style sheet so visually it looks as though you are zooming into the subjects mouth when you scale the viewport down. I also used a noodle font, Big Noodle Titling, to simulate a cartooning all caps font with an oblique style on the titles for dynamic effect. For my navigation I actually consider this a pivot from failing to make a sidecar nav that actually scaled the way that worked well with the design. After styling the page into columns I found it did not hold the form I wanted when scaled to smaller viewports, so I went with a horizontal nav layout with floating silhouette rounded white box and a yellow hover feature. My nav as it exists now does not have a home button in the traditional sense, my logo icon I created for this class is my home page link/button and meant to be a consistent fixed point for UI on the future pages in this site. The other feature that was researched until the solution was it is not a consistent enough effect through multiple browsers to use in this design, my solution to having the background image bleed through the foreground text was to reduce the opacity of the titles and increase their size, this will let the image seep through but maintain the readability of the titles. Moving forward I intend to adjust the site as a responsive site so it scales better and add multiple pages to accompany the other links. Thanks for your time and I look forward to your comments.

here are my initial notes:

here is my initial design:

[Cole_Richards]

This looks fantastic! I love the layout and look of it in general, very nice work!

[Samantha_Thomas]

Still creeped out by that picture but ultimately good job on your website.
I love how the roll-over changes color when you are clicking on the project or other buttons.

[Ericha Eberhart]

Hi James!
I really like your website, it has such a vibe and it is unlike anything else one might expect! I really like how your text is slightly transparent, it really ties the type to the background. I also like your button rollover, the color, and the rounded rectangles are very fitting! This is killing it!

[Mike_Chavez123]

The display looks good, it definitely says welcome.

[Instructor]

After all that you (and I) went through putting this thing together, it's great to finally see it as a real website, James.

I just love the whole visual texture of the thing. It all kicks off from your excellent (and very 90s gross out cartoon inspired) fine art background image. That thing establishes what we're in for here and never lets up. I like the bolder custom font you've chosen as well. Good job coding that into your functioning website. Nice use of transparency, too. I know it wasn't your first choice (boy, do I!), but it get's across the intent from your preliminaries well enough, I feel.

I'd say your bodycopy could have used just a bit more leading. It kind of bunches together in to block now in some browsers.

Good work, James.

[squidgola33]

I think your site is super cool and very personal. the background image is super cool and I like how the buttons and test aren't too overwhelmed by the background. I know that I had to mess with my opacity a couple of times to achieve legible buttons. very Nice site and well structured.

[zandrews]

Hi James!

I always look forward to seeing what you've done/added to your site this semester! The artistic, fun, energetic energy just oozes from this and now its even better 'cause it's alive!

The nav hover animations are excellent and just pop the buttons off the screen. And I gotta talk about the background again - its's just freaking awesome. It seriously feels like an artist rendition of me trying to figure out html and css lol. Anyways there is not much I would critique on this. You've done a fantastic job with everything. My only minor suggestion would be to pull up the copyright at the bottom so you dont have to scroll but at the same time, I like that its out of the way and if you need to see it, its there.

Keep up the great, inspiring work!

Best,
Zach

[lilykmitch]

Hi james
this is so good! i love how when you scroll your background image doesn't move with everything i am going to have to figure out how to do that too. I can tell you know hwat you are doing here! this is super good awesome job!

[Meghna_Misson]

Hey James,
Great website layout! I do favor the initial design with the navigation on the right side, but the horizontal one works just as good and adds better balance to the composition overall. I also do like the feature of clicking on the logo to be brought back to the homepage, amazing attention to detail!