Our Great Class

This week I just wanted to post screenshots of our GDS220 Project 2 landing pages. These were designed for a real client, Viktoria Ford, who is a local artist. After seeing our submissions, she chose one design to use, and Mark Melvin was the designer. Take a look at the variety of designs that we came up with for the same sight. Pretty Awesome!

#1 is by Katie Balch

#2 is by Bissie Buscombe

#3 is by Jill Fleming

#4 is by Brett Geist

#5 is by Mark Melvin - It was chosen by Viktoria

#6 is by Lisa Williamson (me)

I don't have one for Saul Sanchez showing only because I wasn't able to access it.

I hope you enjoy our designs. I know that we all put a great deal of time and effort into them and it was a huge learning experience, too.

Full Windsor

I found this site completely by accident. I was looking up Alex Fowkes, whom I found in Communication Arts (Nov/Dec 2013) in the "Fresh" section, and saw his mudguards for bicycles. This led me to the company he designed them for - Full Windsor. This site is so "over-the-top"! It's logo is an ape wearing a tie and a watch. The Ape hand, pictured at left, is actually your mouse. Wild I know!!!

As you scroll the mouse the ape's hand will move, grab, etc. It'll grunt if you take too much time, too. It's pretty crazy and the sounds could drive you a little bananas (haha - pun intended) but, I just felt the urge to share.

In the third picture you'll see what I was looking at that took me to their website.
The design on their mudguards and some of their t-shirts was done by Alex Fowkes.
He is a graphic designer, typographer, illustrator, etc.

Find your cravings . . .

I was looking at a previous issue of Print magazine (August 2009) - The Food Issue - and came across Celia Cheng. She founded Cravings. It is a website designed to guide you to restaurants in and around New York. 

She has added other locations to her site since her original "start up." Some of these places include Las Vegas, Houston, Chicago and Charleston.

The first image is at the top of her home page, with the second image below it. Then there are a more images and links with this third image being at the bottom.

The fourth image is an inside page - Who wouldn't want cookies every night?

Yum!

Web Forms . . .

I've been doing some research in preparation (hoping it will help) for the forms on Project 4. I found this site called JotForm and it has some basic guidelines in creating clean attractive web forms. Just thought I would share it with you.

They also have templates, apps, and support. You can design your own forms and upload them, use theirs, etc., etc. There are different pricing levels if you want to use their advanced features. To be honest, I hope I don't have to use forms in the future.

344 - Stefan G. Bucher

I've been on "Delicious" quite a bit lately and have run across some interesting things there. This is the website for 344. 

"344 is a full service design and illustration studio with a wide array of capabilities geared toward... Sweet Lord. Are you bored already? Yeah. Me too. My name is Stefan G. Bucher, and I'm the only one here." 

That is the first paragraph on the "About 344" page of the website. I LOVE it already! His sense of humor is pretty obvious and just keeps getting better.

The "Projects" page is equally funny... "While I tend to advocate for the cheap thrills of 'pretty little pictures', I can't deny the obsessive pleasures of a spreadsheet. Therefore I'm please to offer you all the work on this site in the form of an interactive list." You must check out this site if you enjoy a good sense of humor. 

Notice the banner at the top? That's the links. As you hover over "Projects, Dailymonster.com, About 344, Say Hello and Store" the creature's eye follows you. 

This 3rd image is of the landing page - each image, when you hover, gives another view of the one you are over.

The Daily Monster is great! I'm so jealous! The idea of making something out of an ink blot or tooth brush smudge just amazes me. I'm definitely going to return to this site to check out all of his creatures.

Our food. Your Questions.

Yes, this is McDonald's. Believe it or not, I found a two page spread in Communication Arts (November/December 2013) Advertising Annual 54 covering a website where "people could ask any question about McDondald's food." The ad agency handling this promotion is DDB Canada/Tribal (Toronto, Canada).

As it says, they were allowed to ask anything; and everything was answered. On the site you can choose what category you want to view - Beef, Chicken, Eggs & Dairy, Potato, Ingredients, Nutrition, Produce, Sourcing, Values & Other.

You can read all of the questions & their answers, and if you don't see something that you're curious about, you can ask. Who hasn't wondered what's in a chicken "nugget", or how do you keep the sesame seeds on the buns? The answers to these questions are there; I saw them.

Check it out here and ask a question if you feel like it.

Here At Home - NFB/Interactive Website

This site is a feast for the eyes and ears. It is a web documentary about the homeless in Canada. I found this while thumbing through my Communication Arts Interactive Annual 19 (March/April 2013). The article in the magazine didn't do the site justice. You have to see it to appreciate the work put into it. The site is
Here At Home.

Please go and check the site out - each little dark colored circle is a clickable link with information on it & in some cases other links - just explore...

I'm not going to say a lot here, I'm just going to share some screen shots with you...

The client was The National Film Board of Canada & there are so many names attached I don't know which ones to include, so I'll list "Departement.ca - Project Design and Development."

My Thai Restaurant in Champaign, IL

I was researching websites for Project 3 and ran across these. They are all for the same Champaign restaurant - My Thai. Why in the world would they have three different websites? It is beyond me. The first one is the one that I would assume to be their main one; the url is www.mythaichampaign.com which is pretty straight forward. I found it really odd that this site doesn't have a single picture on it. The only thing I can say positively is that it does seem to have all of their menu items. Also note, that they not only have a horizontal link menu at the top, but it is duplicated down the left side.

Then I came across this one www.champaignmythai.com not what I would think of first when searching for a restaurant's website, but, it works. This one is by far the best of the three. It has some little "sparkly" things in their logo that flash and they have lots of pictures (Yea!). This site also has a way for you to order online. So, I would give this site a pretty good rating.

 This one was the third one I found. It is www.mythairestaurantchampaign.com which in my book is too wordy. I don't see anything really wrong with this, I just don't understand why in the world they would have three different sites. If they are using an ordering company, they could still just use one site & have that be their default.

Oh well, I just wanted to share my dismay with you.

Rednose Studio

I was doing research for my Illustration I class and ran across the website for Chris Sickels, Rednose Studio. I found part of my information on the GDS Flickr link and then on the web. I thought it might be kind of appropriate since we are doing a site with galleries for project 2. 

This first picture is on his landing page, and it is just the first picture in his on-line gallery.

He only has four links on his site, though. Which isn't very many in my book. But, he still has a great deal of information, images, items for sale, etc. on his site.

He, as with our project 2, has his blog on his site & it seems to have the same limitations that we are dealing with - no control over how much is seen at one time, etc. You can see this in the second image, which is his "blog" page.

The third picture is from his "contact" page. This image is a panoramic picture that is constantly moving and is of his studio. It is pretty cool to look at all of the stuff in the background that gives him inspiration. It's a little bit choppy, but I really like the idea.

I really liked the "shop". You can buy his sketches, pictures, sculptures & even puppets. Check them out at:

Rednose Studio

Fresh Air Farms - Event Location

I stumbled across this site while looking up a logo I had ran across in Communication Arts Magazine (Design Annual 54) and on the web. Their logo and business card had caught my eye. When I got to their site, I fell in love! 

I don't usually go for sites that are all gooey with romance or any of that stuff, but, this one nabbed me.

The minute you go to Fresh Air Farms, music starts to play & you are taken to an open field with leaves falling from the trees and a horse strolling by in the background (first picture). Then if you go on to the other pages you are still serenaded by the pretty music and the vision of falling leaves and horses, but the bottom half of the screen changes (second picture).

The only time the top image changes is when you visit their "Gallery" page. You are still hearing their pretty little song, but now the entire page changes and you have the picture options to choose from.

I hope you enjoy their site as much as I did.

Pagan & Sharp

This week I found a site for typographers in Communication Arts Design Annual 54, Sept/Oct 2013.

We so often see photography & illustrator sites that I thought this would be a nice change of pace.

Their landing page has two rotating pictures, seen in my first two images at right.

They only have the four basic links at the top so the only one that has text that is formatted would be on their "About" link. It is shown in the third picture, at left.

If you would like to check out their typefaces more closely look at their work, or their blog, please go to their page.

David Hockney

I chose to take a closer look at one of Katie's research websites. I really liked the look of this site and the way the links worked, etc. 

At right is the home page, once you have entered the site. It's very clean and easy to read with a very nice layout.

As you click on links you will notice that each one is a different color. The colors of the links are very harmonious, and I find them to also be elegant looking. 

The picture left-top shows you the "works" link, while the picture left-bottom shows the sub-link for "works/paintings/00".

The images are well represented, not overdone, and you are given preview images to click on so that you don't have to view an entire slideshow if you don't want to.

At right, is the "exhibits" tab. It is very clean, with them listed alphabetically, click-able links, all of the pertinent information.

My final image, left, is the "about" link. Again, it is very cleanly formatted. 

I just like everything about this site. Please take a closer look at it.

David Hockney

ThirdSide - Web Design

I thought I would cover a local Web Design company this week. This is ThirdSide and they are located at 701 Devonshire Drive, #C-40, Champaign, IL 61820 and their phone number is 217-693-3919.

Their site is clean and fairly straight forward with the usual Portfolio, About, Hosting and Contact tabs. I did notice that they have included some of the features that we were talking about in our Template critiques earlier today, which is one reason why I wanted to show them.

 

The World's Most Valuable Social Network - the Missing Children's Website

As this says, I found it in the Interactive Annual 19 of Communication Arts magazine. 

I liked the subject matter most of all... missing children. I can't imagine anything worse than your child being missing. So, I read the article in the magazine, and then also read the online version (sometimes they are different due to the fact that they are sometimes aimed at different audiences). 

I found the information very clear and concise. I was, overall, very pleased with what I say in the magazine and in the online article. So, I included some images here for you to examine.

They say that by signing up with this you can have any "Amber Alerts" automatically posted on your social media networks. 

Then they go on to say that it would notify those using "Foursquare", that are closest to the last known location, so that they could look around for the child & possibly see them.

Then, finally, they say that this has led to some very quickly found children. This would be great if enough people were involved. I, personally, don't use Twitter or Foursquare, so it wouldn't necessarily work too well in my instance.

If you go to the website, click on the "view case" link in order to see how everything works.
www.valuableproject.ca