Project 01 - Preliminary Critique

[antstronomy]

Hello everyone. For my designs, I wanted to keep in mind my interests, and I love music. Ideally, I thought I would love to blog about my favorite music interests and artists if I ever had a web page, so I tried to match the vibe. I looked into chic-looking pages that are more neutral and simple because that's the kind of design I enjoy. My first idea has a purple take with shapes inspired by a liquid metal design I like. My second design is a green take. Purple and green are my two favorite colors, which inspired my designs. A sage green aesthetic inspires my second design. In my mind, I imagine the page is filled with plants or something related to fashion. These two designs both reflect my interests and my style when it comes to design, and that is what I appreciate most about them.

The first website I used for inspiration is my friend Bri's, who is also a graphic designer
https://briannadesigns.com/
I then found a website called Hello Elva and really liked the layout and scroll
https://www.helloelva.com/

[kelseymarie_ba]

Hi Anthony,
I think your color palettes for both designs are great! I really loved that the inspiration behind your website design helps describe who you are an artist! Both layouts are clean but also exciting because of the imagery and shapes you've used so I really appreciated that. I think these are great! If it were something that might help with your designs, it would be to play with more expressive fonts for your headline (name) and maybe use tracking for your text to make it more legible. Hope that helps, can't wait to see what you make throughout the semester! Good luck!

Kelsey Bautista

[keatonbeatty]

Hey Anthony,

I love your designs! You use the space well and the layout of your type, images, and tabs all flow nicely with each other. The only notes I have is the typography choice for the body copy, it's super hard to read so maybe think about toning it down to something such as Helvetica, Myriad Pro, or Futura (Sans Serif fonts) to add some more readability into your information. Also maybe refine some of your more graphic elements, you could use them to accentuate the flow of the eye through your homepage/website. I really like both of your designs and honestly can't choose my favorite because they are both super cool, excited to see the final project!

[YoAdrian!]

Hi Anthony,
These are so cool! I'm really liking the details with the smaller strokes and circle elements to add boarders and emphasis to the items we had to include. For some reason I'm more drawn to your 2nd design, the green one, more. They both have a great use of "breathing room" to keep your eyes moving to the different elements without feeling overwhelmed. The only thing I would play around with might be to move the class title on the 2nd design down to the bottom of the page, possibly in a darker color shade so it doesn't compete with your name an email? Just something to try. Good work! I'm excited to see how it evolves.

[Juan Lara]

Hello Anthony,

I have to agree with everyone else regarding your use of color and typography in your layouts that make them look so appealing and interesting. I personally prefer the blue color scheme and I think you could do more with white space in your layouts, especially in your mobile versions. Aside from that, you have a very keen eye for aesthetics. Keep it up.

[bmeyer]

Hi Anthony!
I really love your work! I think it looks very clean and organized. I also really like all the different shapes incorporated. The only thing I would do is add one more font into the mix. I think it would really make your name stand out if it was in a slightly different font from the other type. Good Job!
-Bella

[Instructor]

These are looking very nice, Anthony. Very nice indeed! I slightly prefer the purple-blue one. I think it's the extra geometric shapes that are the tiebreaker.

I really like the alignments and layout of this thing. Great use of margin throughout your design. Every object has room to breathe. Very strong color selections as well. You clearly spent some time playing with color palettes and every color works together nicely. I also like the textural geometric shapes. That crosshair between the photo and the bodycopy in particular draws the eye right toward all the important bits of content. A great bit of visual anchoring to grab those eyeballs. The whole thing has good contrast, too. Though it's a little more subtle about it than a straight black and white. Good type choice as well. It works hand-in-hand with those geometric shapes you've got going on here. Love the visual texture of the name/title overlapping the image.

I'm not sure if I'd use all caps type for my bodycopy. I get why you did it, but it seems a little shouty. I'd also bold up your navigation a little bit.

Excellent work!

[isaacm03]

Hey there Anthony,

I'm a huge fan of these designs so far. I see similar styles a lot when I am researching for freelance stuff, and the effective use of serifs mixed with both geometric and non-geometric shapes really shows off your skill. Another detail I am a fan of is the overlaying type over the images, which makes everything feel a lot more dynamic. You are doing great things so far, but I think you should switch your body copy to the regular case, as all caps can get hard to read. Lastly, I think you should choose a heavier type style for your navigation menu, but that is just a personal preference. Great great work!!

[NMartz]

Hello Anthony,
I like both designs, but I am leaning towards the first one. Everything looks very clean and organized. The colors you used contrast very nicely. The imagery contrasts with the colors. I think using a music themed font for your name might look cool. Nice work!

[Erikatsukamoto]

Hey Anthony! Nice job on these designs, I think the second one is my favorite. I don't know what I would change, Nice job