Project 4 Preliminary Roughs - Zach Andrews

[zandrews]

Hello Everyone!

I have taken some peeks at what has been posted thus far and although all of your designs are looking great so far, I am so glad I am not the only one feeling like a clown on a unicycle trying to balance a car right now (ie playing catch up and also trying to stay afloat in 4 other GRC classes this semester). I literally want to just teleport myself to May 14th. gahhhhh!

Anyhoo I will be posting my very late project 3 hopefully before this friday to get some sort of critiques back. Been working out a ton of bugs with the CSS and HTML and yeah it makes project 2 look like a walk in the park. At least I am not nearly as late on project 4's preliminary though! Below are my two concepts (desktop + mobile):

CONCEPT 1

CONCEPT 2

As you can see, I wanted to do something a little bit different looking from the school website as I felt hey we're the GAMT dept. - we're creative, crazy and duh, are the best degree program on campus! Originally I was going to go with TMCC's colors and campus imagery but I feel that because of how our classes and career paths will deal so much with design and a variety of colors, looks, etc. why not brand ourselves as our own school within a school and let the logos of TMCC and GAMT tie it all together?!

Anyways for concept 1, I was going for a more spacey meets forest/mountain vibe of northern Nevada. The space elements are meant to signify drawing/design and imagination within obviously the geography of the sierras. I didn't have time to fully compose what the entire page would look like as you would scroll down but I'd have it scroll downward into the trees as the user peruses the content and down at the bottom would be more zany sketches of wildlife of Northern Nevada as mystical, out there creatures in the forest to keep it looking fun and imaginative. These elements will be carried throughout all the pages of the site.

For concept 2. I went with more of a simple, technological design with very clean text layout and almost like an apple-esque feel with slight hints of zany design art as you will see on my sample inner page (btw for my inner sample pages for both, it will be under the "program" dropdown menu where you can then look at the requirements for each degree path within the GAMT program - I just picked the program requirements for the most popular track of the associate of arts). Essentially I wanted to differentiate this design to feel more like a high-end design school (which the GAMT program as we all know is excellent and should exhibit more of a look that represents that) whereas concept 1 is more fun, laid back.

When you guys have a moment let me know your guys thoughts on which design you guys like best as well as any ideas of what I could do to expand or improve upon them! Looking forward to seeing all of your guys' work as well. Keep it up everyone! We're almost there. Definitely some late late nights ahead for this guy.

Best,
Zach

[Instructor]

Ooooh! You're challenging my sensibilities again here, Zach. Usually I'm all about the highest contrast version of a design, but it this case I really prefer your Concept 1. I think it's the depth combined with the whimsy of the astronaut and his misadventures.

I really like the evening colorscheme in this layout. It softens up the whole composition and makes the astronaut cartoon really stand out. That astronaut and his space shenanigans are the real highlight here. I like that there's a different cartoon on every page. The background is great too. It reminds me of a parallax background from an 8-bit video game. The colors give it so much depth without interfering with the foreground content. Your content is cleanly laid out and easy to read. Your navigation is well placed and easy to see and use. I like your bezier pen tool logo and how it incorporates a little of TMCC's colors to tie it to TMCC. Great use of margin and padding throughout. Nothing feels terribly crowded to me. The whole layout has a calming feel in fact.

Your mobile home page is a little plain and would benefit from the addition of the astronaut as you did on your mobile inner page. I'd recommend left aligning the bodycopy on your computer inner page, it looks better that way. I'd also add a little more spacing between each of the General Education requirements on the mobile inner page.

Great work!

[Mike_Chavez123]

Totally Rolling Stones

Great work

[kpargs]

Hi Zach I like your concept 1.I like how its spaced, I like the color and design, and its fun and creative.

[Fatkid53]

Woow! Both designs are awesome. I think I would go with the second concept you posted. It has a high contrast base with the ability to be a great stage for further work and designs, that being said I would add some more individual work to the layout to demonstrate that and possibly bold up the copy in the center to further accent the contrast you are displaying. Great work, look forward to seeing how you finalize and build it.

[Samantha_Thomas]

I think you should go with the second concept and run with it. It has an entertaining look, and I love the northern light it has on the page. Your first one relates a bit too much to someone's home page, so go with the second one. It is unique and not a copy feeling like the Home page of I forget who it is.

[Ericha Eberhart]

Hi! I like both of these, but I think the second is my favorite! The glowing purple background looks great with the green and white GAMT and just has this really cool glowing vibe. I am also a big fan of the thin type, with some more imagery like what you already have this would be awesome!

[Megan Greaves]

I'm really digging that first concept. Its fun and unique. I really like how the astronaut breaks into the first paragraph indent. It would be cool to see more interactions like that on other pages. I really like the idea of this little character or characters integrating with the text. Great work! I bet you can do a lot of fun stuff with this in the coding.

[James Hill]

Hi Zach
I like both designs they stray far from the orginal and look very warm. I think the straying away does take from it looking like a college website. I like concept two but think the image could be gone. OR make it like your mobile design. I voted for design two to be the follow through and cant wait to see the final build.

[lilykmitch]

Hi zach
i really like your concept 1 layouts. they are a lot easier to navigate and i think the pages go together really well!