Wednesday 9 May 2012

Interactive 500 Word Self Assessment


I feel that the overall design of my site turned out to be better than I had hoped; using the feedback that friends and family gave me I was able to expand my design and make it more unique. Originally I wanted to create a more colourful site, but seeing the websites that are too noisy and loud put me off that idea, to the point that I even took out the purple, and stuck only with the blue, black and white, keeping the site minimalistic without looking too dull. Another way I achieved this was using a subtle background, keeping it black, but adding a lighter, grey pattern to break up the plain colour and make the page more interesting and feel less empty.

In designing my website I wanted it to be set out in a minimalistic way that was easy to navigate while still being aesthetically pleasing. I think I achieved this because though at first my website went through a lot of changes to things such as colour schemes and fonts; my final design was clear and concise while still being professional and attractive. I think my most successful pages were my gallery pages, because they are well laid out and look very professional.

The audience which this site is aimed at is possible employers or other interested parties looking for examples of my work and skills, for this reason I made the site easy to navigate and very clear and concise, so that these users can find the information they are looking for fast and efficiently without having to mess around looking for links or deciphering jumbles of text and images.

In this project I have learned how to use the Dreamweaver software on a more advanced level. In the last project I did not have to use anything so advanced as a CSS page, so this project was much more complex, and so I had to learn a lot of new techniques and processes for producing things on the page such as paragraphs, break tags how to use headers, footers and DIV boxes, also how to embed images and video in pages using iFrames.I also learned what Adobe Bridge is for and how to use it to create and embed galleries.

There are a few points in which I believe I could have improved on, most of which are related to having a better and more in-depth understanding of the programs I used. I know I could have incorporated the images and the videos into the page better, making them look more in place.
I would also have preferred the background to be more detailed and ornate but time was short and it was complex enough to make it repeatable. Given more time I would have added to the design.
I would also have added more information to the site given more time, as there is not a lot of text. However being a portfolio sit it would naturally have been built up over time.

I may use my new knowledge of to create an proper portfolio website, which would be helpful to me in networking and self promotion. This may help me find employers in the future.