GRC 175 Learning and Discussion Forum

Hey everybody,
For project03, I decided to re-design the website for the Yale School of Art (https://www.art.yale.edu/), the concept for the website is that it's a wiki website - which means the website exists as an ongoing collaborative experiment in digital publishing and information sharing. This particular function means that all members of the School of Art community have the ability to add new, and edit most existing content.

For the first version that I created, I wanted to stay true to the conceptual concept that the website portrays so the design layout is a bit more expressive than I usually would do and the background image is collage art of artistic elements with a bit of a grungy feel to it (I created the collage art in Photoshop). I noticed that the website isn't your traditional, legible, and minimal layout some people are used to but I think that is the artistic statement that goes behind the website. It was really hard to for me to design something with the vintage feel the original website has so I tried my best to balance a bit of my style into the layout while still thinking of something an art student would find deeper meaning in, the idea of illegibility and a hectic website layout would make a designer angry but conceptual art is art in which the idea or concept presented by the artist is considered more important than its appearance or execution, so I was thinking more of the audience rather than the user design behind version one.

The second version consists of a layout that is more my style as a designer and focused more on legibility and minimal elements. While doing research, I noticed that I was interested more in simple and clean designs; popular websites were successful because they focused on the user experience rather than the message of art and helped the audience navigate throughout the website in a simple and straight-forward manner. That was my main concern for the re-design, so instead of catering to the audience of Yale School of Art and I decided to influence my creative process by making sure the purpose of the re-designed website was not only to keep current students interested but possibly future students, parents, and any potential people who are just browsing to show interest as well.

Both designs are pretty much the opposite but each serve different purposes and cater to different crowds. I hope you guys enjoy the layout designs and looking forward to using the feedback!

Hey Kelsie! I loveee what you have done with this website, I think both of these designs look amazing. Its really hard for me to chose one, but I think I'm going to go with the second one. The second one doesn't have as much going on in the background, however I think because of this its much easier to read and I think works better. Really nice job!

Hello Kelsey, good work. I prefer your second design more. I like the fonts you used. My advice would be to shorten the "about the school" and "apply to the school" to just "about" and "apply" and center the navigation on the web layout.

Howdy Kelsie!

I LOVE both of your designs a lot! I am personally more into the second design as the texture on the whole design and the texture of the paper is going a bit easier on my eyes and brain. I really enjoy the Dada feel of the first design but I feel like it is just a bit too much on my eyes. I also really like the layout of text boxes and dropdowns in the second design as it is easy to read and contrast well against the background enough to see. The first design works well with these but I feel the somewhat opaque boxes make it harder to read the text.

I really love what you got going on! Good luck! \^o^/

Hey Kelsey!
I like your layouts so far. Seeing variations on the Yale website is always fun. I think I prefer the first layout. While not traditional in web design, I love the magazine cutouts and I think it conveys an encompassing feeling when it comes to art. My only advice is to size up your body copy by a point or two. Great work.

Hey Kelsey,

Nice re-designs! I really like the collage you put together. I would say maybe size up the body font to increase readability. Overall it looks awesome!

Hi Kelsey!
I really love the look of the image you used for the background in your first design more than the cluttered look of the first design, although I love the first idea of making a collage with different letters, the second design works a bit better in my opinion. The only thing I would change is making the body text a serif font so you got a good combination of both serif and sans-serif. Great job!

Hi Kelsey!
I'm loving the artistic and collage layout that you've done with both designs!! I'm liking the first ones elements more, I love the use of tape to use for the text, it makes it blend really well with the collage, and it'll work for every page If there's a way to make the text look legible, but also handwritten , I think it would fit the vibe better.
I'm super excited to see the end product, this looks sick!

Hi Kelsey!
I looove your designs!!! Both of them look great and I think you made the website way better. If I had to change something, I would change the font style for the first one. Other than that, it looks great! My favorite will is the second design. Great job!