#tudfj

The goal for my personal portfolio project was to display my design for my website in the best possible layout and make it easy for users to navigate the website and access all of the information they needed. My website has everything i need for someone to contact me about a job posting. brendanmurray15.com lists my personal resume, as well as my portfolio with all of my projects for those who may be contacting me about a specific job, it would provide them with samples of my work.

I achieved this by picking a design with a bar menu across the top. This bar menu displays everything the user needs to navigate my website in a timely manner. I think it is important not to make it to complicated or complex for the user to work and explore your website because then that my take away from their true opinion of your web page.

http://brendanmurray15.com

Some of the goals I had when building my personal portfolio were to really encapsulate who I am as a person into a webpage. I really wanted to showcase my personality in it, not just the work I completed throughout the semester. I think when people understand who I am, they’ll better understand why I designed certain things the way that I did. Another goal I had was to make everything very simple, clean, and user-friendly. It’s a portfolio; my work should stand out more than anything.

1. My goal in having a portfolio website is so people can see my work without me having to send it to them with the intention of finding work, and in a visually attractive way. I have the about page so someone interested in my work can see what else I do, or find out general information about me that wouldn’t fit in a Twitter or LinkedIn bio. The contact page makes it neater and easier to contact me than looking for my email through social media, it also makes me look more professional for that. The portfolio website also organizes my portfolio into genres, which is easier and can keep a potential employers attention better than emailing an entire folder of work. My problem though, is that I couldn’t figure out how to make the actual portfolio page (what comes up when you click portfolio) include everything I post in the tags under the parent portfolio pages. Everything I post in the Design tag only shows up in the Design page, instead of the Portfolio page including all my recent posts in that section. I think it’s because it’s a static page and not a custom link like the home page is, so I’ll have to figure out how to make that work how I want it to. 

2. I wanted to have something mainly black and white because I felt like having a lot of colors might distract from the actual content on the website. I tried to keep FADER in mind a little with this website, because the design of their site is really plain to allow the content to be the main attraction, and I wanted to sort of do the same. I decided to change the theme to my current one because it looks more sleek and had a nice amount of space for the header image. I made the header image a black and white photo of a skyline that they already included with the theme, because I thought the black and white would go nicely with the rest of the website. The theme also made everything easy to locate and had a nice search icon already there that was highlighted with the green, which helped differentiate it from the rest of the sections and highlight the importance. My only problem with the theme was that it didn't have a place where I could put my icon/logo. I did more research on the theme and I think I can add the logo if I also add another sidebar on the left. I made 4 tags under my portfolio, because they could be separated into 4 different kinds of media (writing, photos, graphic design, and audio). This also helps showcase that I’m capable of doing all those kinds of things.

3. Final Logo (I wanted to keep the simple white background but I changed the color scheme according to my new theme. I added a microphone to go with the journalist/podcast theme, since that image kind of encompasses both those themes.)

4. https://almondmilkmanwrites.wordpress.com/

The goals for my portfolio website are quite simple. I hope to use it as a space to showcase all my work, in hopes of one day becoming employed. 

The design decisions I made were simple and pretty. I made my sight yellow because it is a warm color, a happy color and my favorite color. I used a Pocahontas quote on my home page because that is my favorite Disney movie, and I feel the quote is a good one. 

1.) For my portfolio website, I wanted to keep things incredibly simple and clean. For me, websites with too many pictures and colors are a bit overwhelming and not as pleasing to the eye as something that is more simple and clean so I decided to stick with simplicity. I tried my best to make sure that everything was easy to navigate and that you could view my work easily. 

2.) The design decisions that I made to carry out my goals with my website was to stick with very minimal, basic colors like whites, dark grays and blacks. To allow a bit of my personality to shine through, I used a pink color for my logo, but a pink that is not incredibly bright or “pops” too much. I tried my best to work with colors that go together well.

3.) Here is my final logo:

4.) Here is a screenshot of my site:

Here is a link to my site: 

1. 

2. https://m4ckm4ssey.wordpress.com/

1. I did my app for HuffPost, also known as “The Huffington Post” and “HuffPo.” It is a left-leaning online new organization that exists in both website- and blog-form. Its storytelling takes the form of writing, photo, and video. Article categories of HuffPost include breaking news, politics, opinion, entertainment, and communities. It is known for its embrace of social justice issues, and for amplifying the voices of LGBTQ individuals and people of color.

2. When creating the design for this app, I used HuffPost’s classic mint, white, and black color scheme, as well as their fonts Proxima Nova Extrabold and Proxima Nova Extrabold Italic, in the interest of staying close to the organization’s brand. I kept the design for all the pages simplistic, to make it easy for mobile users to navigate. The login and sign-up screens are plain and devoid of any distracting, unnecessary background text or images. The design also has minimalist arrangements for aesthetic value, including bubble-like news photos, the repetitive-but-useful “home” button design, and large, boxy social media icons. I included grayed, small blurbs aside the images to give the images the most prominence on the home screen, drawing the user’s eye. I used repetition in my design through the colors, text, and small designs like the mint lines that run underneath each category. I also used the halved square design used in the HuffPost logo as an icon throughout the experience, to give design repetition and stay true to the brand, while also giving mobile users a different experience than they would get through the webpage.