#projectposts

To help us with our time management, we are tracking our progress with Trello. Though I like that it's color scheme is similar to Tumblr, I don't think I like the way the site is structured. I miss BaseCamp and Teamworks, though that management site was definitely for a larger groups and probably needed an account manager to look over. Oh well. I'm going to try not to pass any further judgement.

Okay, here goes! Final semester at TCNJ and I am ready to start coding. out the website. My goal was to work over winter break and have it mostly done but between my internship and the way last semester ended I needed a little time off. That's not to say that I wasn't actively thinking about my project. I found another option for coding called HTML Kickstart (which had even better documentation than Pure) though it's a little finicky right now. But at least so far it's got everything I need so I'm going to give it this weekend to see if I can work out all of its kinks.

Keep your fingers crossed for me! 

I took a much need retreat this evening to collect my thoughts for the impending IMM Thesis final proposal. Although I felt that the Winter Showcase was great in helping me to prepare for Monday's presentation, I realized that I really wasn't happy with the way my project looks at the moment. I'm afraid that after looking into other library's sites that my current mockup isn't strong enough or interesting. With my confidence a little shaken I took the time during my retreat to think about what I had so far. 

Armed with a hot chocolate and a cake-pop (for inspirational purposes of course) I started off with a clean piece of paper, and asked myself the questions that were really bothering me: should I reign in the site's character and focus on clean and minimal? Initially it seemed important to ground the Library in the community and connecting to the physical library seemed like the best way to do this. However, I'm afraid that it'll look hokey and that it will turn away savvy users.

Feeling frustrated and a little cold (it had to below 60 in that Starbucks) I decided to revisit ideas that I had had for the site from way back in the summer. They were much more fluid and streamlined, similar to a tumblr theme that escapes me at the moment. I really liked how it looked and wondered how I could fuse the two ideas that I had together. 

11/15: By the end of the week I hope to have a few different mockups created for the website to show Langham and other librarians. I’d like to get their input as they read over my Creative Brief, which again, I’d like to have written by the end of the week. As I go along throughout this process, I wanted to document the experience in a book, especially the technical documents.

11/22: Start creating the homepage of the site and subsequent pages. I would very much like to be able to show my finalized technical documents, including preliminary notes (Design and Ideate), the Creative Brief, the timeline information, finalized mockups, and site maps. 

11/29: Since I’ll still be home from Thanksgiving Break, I hope to go out and take some pictures of the Library and surrounding area of Orangeburg. (Sense of community.) If possible, I would also like to begin thinking about how the redesign will affect the digital and printed newsletter.(The project is expanding from just web design towards a more compreshensive re-branding project.)

12/6: I would like to have at least a very rough draft of the website ready to show by the end of the semester. Before presenting the website to the class I would like to get it to the Orangeburg Library for review so that I will have more to talk about for the final presentations (in finals week).

On Friday I reached out to the Orangeburg Library to see if they would be interested in a new website. With their approval I began to brainstorm how I would change the site, thinking back to alterations that I had already made when I recreated the site back in Intro to Web Design. I realized that if I tried to plan to far ahead before meeting with them I would go into the meeting with too many preconceived ideas and I wouldn't actually listen to what the library director had to say. So I decide to try using the D-School method that we used in Principles of Interactivity. By planning out the questions that I wanted to ask and trying to get an idea of what I would be doing (and who I was working with) I could be better prepared for my meeting.

My Idea: As both a Graphic Design and Interactive Multimedia major, I want my senior thesis project to reflect the skillset that I have gained from the different classes I have taken. I have taken a long time to think about how I would like to go about doing this, mainly focusing on how my senior thesis will translate into my “real-world job.” While I have a great appreciation for the work that I have done in my multimedia classes, I decided that I also wanted to showcase my graphic design skills. Originally I had wanted to create a magazine/news website that would utilize modern techniques to display the information, not just a simple flip animation. My idea however, has changed. Though the idea was good, I felt that it did not quite match with what my expectations for my career will be. So I shifted my focus back to what I like about my graphic design projects. I felt that I had some strong concepts from some of the projects that I had already created that were print or packaging based. No project in my graphic design portfolio was really web-oriented, which is what I’d like to do. So I thought about how I could go about channeling the ideas behind existing work onto a mobile, tablet, or computer screen. What I hope to do is select a few different works from my portfolio and really polish the ideas behind the works to perfection and treat them as if they were real companies. From there I will create unique web experiences for each, trying to showcase both my work, and my ideas behind them.

My Inspiration: B-Reel, Black Negative, Hyperakt, Legwork Studio, and the hundreds of other web/interactive design firms that are changing the way that we approach web-based design inspired me to change my approach to this project. I had been getting hung up on creating something that no one had ever seen when I realized that my goals were too lofty. What I should have been thinking of is, how can I make my user’s experience fun – as well as informative? After all, information is why people choose to look at a site. The entertaining elements keep them there. So while my project does not really “break new ground” it is a new outlook for me and will help me to standout as a designer. By proving that I can think in multiple ways – designing/layout, interactive developing, and marketing/advertising, I will be more marketable in my field. Therefore, my work should appeal to that project’s specific audience, as well as fellow designers. For my Midterm Prototype I will have fleshed out each project with the company’s biography, demographic, and my plan for addressing the company’s project.

My Strategy: Since each 'sub-site' will vary in style, language, and overall design, my creative strategy is to look at the companies for what they are, what their goals are, whether its to share information or draw in new clients. Next, I will look at how the layout of the print could correspond to the screen. Does it make sense to emphasize one element versus another? I will then create the site, working hard to ensure that it is uniform with the existing brand, from the user experience to the overall layout of the site. Finally I will unite all of my projects under one “roof” or main site that visitors can visit to see my design versatility.

Technically, I will need to acquire a few things before I get start. One of the most important things I will need is a domain name for my project where I can host my main site, with the others branching off of it. I think I will probably buy a domain through A Small Orange, so that I can use the site and keep it updated after I graduate. Outside of the domain name and server space, I can’t think of what else I might need at this time. I will try my best to make the site responsive on any screen so I believe I will be using HTML5/CSS3 to code out my site. I may also give Bootstrap or Pure a try for my initial prototyping though. I think, as I get further along on the project, I will have a better idea what else I will need.

I think I already have a lot of the skills that I need for this project, though I hope to use HTML5 and CSS3; so I might need a little refresher. I am also going to use JavaScript and perhaps a little bit of PHP, so I will definitely be reaching out to my old textbooks. I will also be looking at Web Designer Depot for aids as I work to code as they have great code examples and some tutorials, like this one or this one, that I would like to use. I will also refer to CSS-Tricks for help with specific CSS questions, as I do want to primarily use code that will make my sites cross-browser compatible. I know that I will need additional resources for this project, which I will probably have to research as I go along.

For a while now I've been thinking about how websites could become more user-friendly, more dynamic, and utilize their content more effectively. I was drawn to print-to-web content, like magazines and literature because they have such great resources to pull from, I always want to see the designers really take advantage of it.

Now perhaps they work this way to keep their site lightweight so users can access the information quickly and easily, or they want to keep the layout of the site familiar to the user. However, there are still sites that are more effectively handling the content and there are others that are not. In the researching stage that I am in, I have been looking at several different sites and how they are managing their content. Some will be examples of good design, others bad, and things that I'm learning from my research.

I'm very excited overall about this project as it's a great way for me to really merge my interest in web design with print. It's a growing field and I'd like to learn as much as I can. If I find anything interesting along the way that's related to this subject I'll post it to this blog as well as my own work. I'll try to post a few times a week with relevant material as well as some of my own thoughts as I work through the project.