For designing for web I learnt a lot of new skills which I had never practiced before as I have never designed for the web prior to this brief. It has taught me how to use design to engage people in things (in this case an album release) and get them excited about it also (like leaking more snippets of a video closer to the release). I have also developed the skill of layout throughout this brief as it is a key factor of web design, and you are designing for someone right in front of their eyes, rather than in print like a book when you have to take into consideration how the viewer picks it up, feels it and opens the book. It has developed the skill of interaction with the viewer for me, as anything on web is possible allowing the designer to become really creative and imaginative.
For research I looked in to already existing temporary album release websites, I found some to be really useful and inspiring, and some to be slightly unsuccessful. This was beneficial to me in both ways as I could learnt from what to take from the good, and what to learn from others. I also looked into sites such as ‘Sites We Like’ (designmadeingermany.com), these sorts of websites showcase amazing examples of brilliant web design, this influenced me to think of different and new ways to engage with the viewers.
I feel that strengths in this brief for me was creating the hand rendered typeface. I really enjoyed creating a natural, organic looking typeface individual to this website, rather than downloading one off the internet. This was created by listening to the artists music and thinking of what effect it gave, trying to distinguish what sort of typeface could reflect that. It was then drawn by hand in fine liner and scanned in on a flatbed A4 photo and document scanner. This allowed me to then open it on Illustrator and image trace it, enabling me to adjust the sizing of the letters, as well as the kerning and the colour.
Weaknesses for this brief included creating exciting and interactive elements to involve the viewers with. I struggled with this due to finding it difficult to demonstrate different effects. However as the brief processed I feel that I got a better understanding of this, although due to poor time management I was unable to use this understanding into practice to develop the interactive element of the website which would have made it stronger.
A problem I had was solving the solution of involving all the countries mentioned in the brief. My initial ideas were to include these countries in the tour, however that is not solving it from a design perspective but rather from the artists perspective, in which I do not have control over. By putting myself in the shoes of someone from one of these other countries I manages to find a solution, having an option for different languages. Often language icons on the web can look tacky, so I enjoyed designing these to fit in to the more clean aesthetic of the website.
My time management was better than other briefs for this project however I still feel that if I was to organise my time better I would have been able to produce a more interactive and interesting website.
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