Project 2 Preliminary Critique

[aslychsm]

Hi, all. My name is Ashley, and this is the preliminary for project 2. For this assignment we needed to find a poorly put together website, and use our magic to make it better. For my website redesign I chose this one ..

http://www.joesplacepizzaandpasta.com/

I knew immediately that I wanted to do a restaurant theme when this project was given to us. Don't know why. Probably because I really love food. Hence the potato icon. Anyways!

For my first roughs, I went with a more relaxed, somewhat childish approach, with a few patterns that may or may not clash. I'd like to think of it as a place similar to Chuck E Cheese's, where parents take their children to burn off excess energy, and maybe grab a pretty tasty pasta dish too. I need to work more on my font choice, as the one shown was simply a default my computer had. For my buttons, I thought it would be cute to have a big chomp mark during the mouse rollover, so there's that.

My second roughs are a little more mature. I wanted this to be more of an upscale looking restaurant, so I attempted that. I used a few textures, wood especially, to emphasize the trays they place the pizza's on before throwing them in the oven. As for my image, I battled with whether I wanted to use a photo of pizza or pasta, and finally decided on spices. Spices because they're in everything. And no fine tasting pizza should ever lack spices, pasta too. The buttons simply turn red during the rollover. I like this one, but I'm a little scared of the coding evolved. But time will tell.

That about sums it up! Thanks for reading this far! Feedback is definitely welcome!

[lingling_chen]

Hi,Ashley

I like your roughs, they all have some interesting stuff going on there. I like the bite mark on your top rough, and I like the paper note on your bottom rough......
it's little bit hard for me to say like which one better. I think I will vote for your top roughs, because it is easier to tell what kind of the food in the restaurant. Good job!

Lingling

[paula_b]

Hi Ashley!
Nice roughs! While I like the concept of your second rough, I have to go with rough 1. Based on the composition and imagery, I would have to check out this restaurant. The only suggestion that I have is to put a light opacity box behind the name. It gets a little lost in the image. Good start!

[Sierragirlnv]

Hi Ashley,
Great job on your roughs. I like the second layout because it has a homemade appeal but the imagery as awesome as it is reflects very high end culinary tastes. Take the anise seeds in the photo I don't know of any pizza recipes that would call for a spice like that. I looked at that particular pizza restaurant menu and you wouldn't want to give a patron the wrong idea about their food. I am attracted to that design theme and the colors are great but if you could find another image that has actual pizza ingredients that the restaurant carries I think it would be a better fit. The first design looks great as well but it also looks a little juvenile for a restaurant. I like that you have the color red in your designs as well. That is an important color because it stimulates hunger. It's almost impossible to find a pizza restaurant without that color.
I owned a pizza restaurant for ten years, it's why I have so many suggestions... haha

Sierragirlnv

[recordd]

Hi Ashley!
Nice job on your roughs! Both designs contain a simplistic navigation, they are clean and well-balanced. I'm leaning more towards rough #2 because it is elegant, professional, and unique. I think it is a great idea to use spices as your target image it does give your design a sense of elegance. I love how your content boxes come out of the image, they are unique and seem like they are 3D. The two suggestions that I have are, that I agree with Paula if you add a light opacity box behind the name I think it would make it pop out a little more and I would maybe add the contact information & hours to the homepage. I can't wait to see your final design!

[ElizabethBrass]

Hi Ashly,

Great Job on your roughs. I like the second one because it is so clean and upscale looking. When I was looking at it I wanted to click on the buttons to see what the menu was! So in other words its easy to navigate.

[georgia_novotny]

Hi Ashley,
I really like both of your designs. Great concepts for a restaurant website.
Both of them work for me but I am leaning towards the redesign 2 over the first one.
I noticed that on their website- the photos they have and the way the restaurant looks…
The 2nd design fits better. I think it’s a better design style for their theme of restaurant.

I love the 2nd’s design style it looks very Italian which looks great for the pizzeria.
Did you create that or is it all one photo? It looks so good I can’t tell!
Love the artistic feel if it’s a photo and wow if you created it!

The fonts gets kind of lost- I would play around with that. Like the black text on the red background get lost when you test it by squinting your eyes. The white font blends in and it also might need to be bolder or changed to a different color. The navigation is very simple and I think you should figure a creative way to get rid of the negative white space. I like the frame of the white outside columns but it needs something with that.

Hope some of all that helps.
Nice job on these roughs, they are a great start.
Georgia

[rrodriguez]

Ashley, I like the mature layout for so many reasons. Images do speak louder than words sometime and your homepage popped out at first glance. The buttons are simple and great at the same time because their big, and on the left which will make it easy to figure out where you're at on the site. The colored sticky note pads are a cute and creative way to display the information, very cleaver. My only real suggestion is changing the image of the spices to something else when you click on a different page, maybe this is where you can display other foods the establishment serves. You did a great job here

[TsukimizuDC]

Ashley,

I love these concepts. It makes me want to order pizza right away. I leaning to the second design because of the sight of the ingredients makes the whole page feel elegant. The first rough looks cool but it's a little plain and it doesn't attract to me like the second rough does. I also think that you should on resizing the type on rough 2.

All in all, great start.

[dboudinot]

Hi Ashley,

I think both sets of roughs sell the product well. I like the layout of the Polaroids on the top set; the rotation and overlap look really nice. On the bottom set,I really like the balance of the three vertical columns, and the imagery does make me think of a slightly more upscale operation. I think I would go for the bottom set because the asymmetrical balance is so strong. You might consider a drop shadow on the logo to make it pop off a little more, but a drop shadow could also have the opposite effect and make it less legible, so I would play with it a little to see what really works. Good Job and good luck picking your final concept!