GRC 175 Learning and Discussion Forum

Impressive!

Great work, Tiffani. You've got two top notch designs here. Both make me feel the prestige of MIT just by looking at them. I like your first design better I think. It's contrast, geometry, and focus on people really put it a cut above the second. The second one feels like a top notch art gallery website (save it and use it when you get an art gallery client). I really like the way it ties into the geometry of your logo design, which is also excellent BTW. It uses the right angles in your logo and the placement of images to imply the logo across the layout, thus reinforcing your branding.

I also think the color use is excellent, repeating the burgundy and gray all over the website (even in your images!) also serves as a brand reinforcer. And burgundy is a dark enough color that you get some great contrast throughout the layout

The only area where your first design falls down a little bit is in typography. I like the font choice, it works especially well on the home page, but you need to work with it a bit on the inner page. Firstly, you need to loose the underline on your headlines. Users are trained to see underlines and think "hey, clickable link" and you don't want them furiously clicking at your headlines. Use boldness to separate your headlines and bodycopy. Secondly, you have way, way too much leading in your bodycopy. Tone it down a bit. Lastly, margins. Your headlines are way to close to the bodycopy above them. Make them close to the body copy they apply to and farther from the bodycopy they have nothing to do with, that way they will be visually tied together an have room to breathe.

Truly, top notch work. Very professional looking.

Great job, Tiffani !
I like the layout. The balance of photos and navigation is awesome.
Personally, I like the design 1.
I think you can play with the font of body copy a little bit

Kiwako

They both look very good, great improvement!!! I like the first draft, the layout look very good and the "about" has very cool image in the back. I don't see anything that need any major changes. Great start!

Tiffani-


Both your concepts have solid designs. I think I prefer the first one, just because it gives me more of a feel for "visual design" as opposed to the second one, which makes me think more of a school catering to architecture. I also like the varying placement of navigation in the first one, and the images really give me a nice mix of different visual media. I do like the content page design of the second layout, though. The image in the background gives a nice immersive feel, I'm wondering if you could combine it with the first layout?

Tiffani,

Your second roughs are the ones that I prefer. I feel the design has a better focus on the projects than the second, which feels like it obscures the projects. I don't think the search bar is necessary, it might work better as a grid of pictures showing the separate projects. Great start, though; looking forward to your final!

... I have to say, your layouts are definitely an improvement of the original site so far. I do like the high quality feel of your roughs, which you've done a good job of communicating, but if I had to pick one then it'd be the first one. It's still clean and easy to navigate, and at the same time still dynamic and of course carries on the feel of high quality you were going for. The second one seems a little too busy with the background images. You're off to a great start here.