GRC 175 Learning and Discussion Forum

Hi everyone!

I decided to go with Sundance Books and Music which is a local bookstore in Reno.
https://www.sundancebookstore.com

I often visit this bookstore personally so when I saw how narrow and dated their website was I had to add it to my list.
I wanted to simplify/spread out the content on the homepage as it felt a little cluttered and didn't seem extremely user-friendly. I decided to design the "Reading" tab for the inner pages. I also included attachments of both designs with drop-down menus and all that good stuff. I wanted to keep the yellow theme throughout and tried to play off the singular logo color, but these are just my ideas!

Hi Jenna! I really like both of your designs! I love the circle picture that looks like a sun, it’s so cute! That and the layout make design one my favorite. The color you used works super well also. My advice would be to move the navigation bar up a little, so the sun has more margin. Also, I think it would be cool if you added a picture of the inside for the about page. Good job!
-Bella

Oh my, you've got two close ones here, Jenna. I think I slightly prefer your Design 1, just because the image of their little sun as a picture frame is such a strong image.

That sun pic of the bookstore is by far the strongest visual on this design, but I think the real MVP is that bookmark top bar, especially on your mobile pages where it goes all the way across the top. It's such a neat visual texture, Let looks like a 1930s ad for some snake oil care product. I like the way you use the different golds and yellows throughout too. They do a good job of separating all the sections from each other and play off the black as well. Good typography choices as well. They play off the store's existing typography nicely and don't cause too much of a design distraction. Good photo selections as well. They give a good feel for the bookstore, establish a great tone for the website, and show what's on offer there. Really entices you to come.

I'd recommend bringing the bookmark header all the way across on your computer layouts. It looks so good that way on your mobile layouts that I think it's worth adding to the computer flavor of this thing. Size your navigation buttons so that the type in them is the same size. Build you buttons around the longest word and work down from there. I'd also recommend either left or right aligning the bodycopy on your home page. Center aligning never looks good on bodycopy.

Great work!

Hey Jenna! Im really loving both of these designs! Your colors that you have going on and the sun designs are so cute! If I had to chose one, I think I'm leaning towards the first design more. If I had to change one thing I would center the Sundance logo in the sun, It seems to be to far to the left and the outline is becoming visible. Really great job!

Hi Jenna,
Good work on both designs, it's so hard to get so much information onto one page! Both designs have taken the original site to a new level. I think I like the sun design a little better. If you could, maybe try to work in the triangles of the Sundance bookmark, the one at top of the original site, into the design somehow. I think it could really compliment the sun design you came up with. I love the free bookmark they give you when you buy a book there, so people will really recognize that design.

-Johnna

Hi Jenna,
I think that it was an awesome choice to choose yellow as the main color for your concept, it represents the company perfectly while still creating a fun element for your layout design! Although I think both designs are great, I think my favorite might be the first one! I really enjoyed the shadowing to the images because it gives them more dimension and almost portrays them like an actual book instead of an image (if that makes sense). Something that I think would help with the design would maybe be adding a right pointing arrow for the menu bar that displays "whats new," it looks like that the store has more than four books so I'm sure your purpose is to scroll possibly? If that was your purpose, I think adding the arrow would help users navigate better. Hope that helps and great work! Looking forward to your final design!

Hello Jenna, good work. I like the first design best but both are good! Everything on the page flows nicely. My advice would be to use more of that negative space in the web layout

Hey Jenna!
Great work on both of these. I think I am leaning towards your design 2 concepts as I think you use space a lot better here. My only critique is to consider scaling down the logo of the site, as it is very prominent currently.

Hi Jenna,
I'm loving the sun element that you're adding to the images + logo. It's a cute spin, especially for their name sundance If the arrows could be in the same style, it would look so cool! Overall, great job>v<

Hey Jenna,

Nice work on your re-designs! I love your sunny colors and graphic elements. I think maybe simplifying the page a little bit would help with legibility just because there is quite a bit going on on the page. Overall, great job!