Logo in four color variations

Concept statment and portfolio asset list

Create a list of all users that may visit your site (not from the WWW but those you’d invite).

.          Prospective Employers

.          Designers/ Artists

.          Friends

.          Family

What will each of those users want to see in order to enjoy their visit to your site?

.          Primarily users would like to see work examples that I have done as well as how I have organized my website in order to get a sense of who I am as a designer.

Name your intended audience (the person(s) you need to persuade.)

.          The intended audiences are prospective employers since the main function of my website is to generate work.

Describe what you need to inform and persuade them of:

            I need to persuade employers that I have the skills set necessary to complete task that would be given to me

.          Promote my:

            To promote my previous work and future work that I am capable of doing I need to showcase my previous work in a very clean and polished manner.

.          Goals of the site are:

            The goal of the site is to act as an extension of my design aesthetic by showing the quality of my work.

.          My ultimate message/philosophy (about who you are):

            I am a very quality driven designer that likes design to be polished and well thought out.

.          What is the story you are telling?

            The story I am telling is the story of a designer that need to be part of their team. As that designer, I am diligent and hard working while still able to maintaining a sense of humor.

.      Write a 200 word concept statement based on the user, your persuasion, navigation and the assets.

.      List the assets you need to persuade the user: Which 7 (minimum) projects? scans of what?, photos of what objects? images from what computer graphics program? what descriptive text? list them.

Asset list:

General

.          Homepage/about me/ contact  background image (locate replacement for self image idea)

.          About me body copy

.          Main navigation bar rollover behaviors (idea)

.          In galleries sub-navigation icons and rollover behaviors

Illustration

1. Addiction to oil composite project.
1. Image sized for website from .psd file needed
2. Through the looking glass vector project.
1. Image sized for website from .ai file needed
3. BD+C student exercises
1. Images printed and photographed

Print

1. SDTI catalog
1. Print out of pages from catalog photographed (3 total)
2. Old School New School typography book
1. Print out of pages from catalog photographed (3 total)
3. Generic museum of art competitive analysis
1. Print out of pages from document photographed (3 total)
4. Whidbey Island  Mudder poster
1. Image sized for website from .psd file needed

Branding

1. Treehouse Animation Studios business cabinet

a.      document photographed (3 total)

2. Treehouse Animation Studios  logo design case study

a.      Scans of work from start to finish (3 total)

3. Generic museum of art logo

a.      Image sized for website from .ai file

Photography

1. Greenwood car show images

a.      Images sized for website from photos

2. Nature images

b.      Images sized for website from photos

Concept Statement:

Jesse Diaz is a graphics designer that provides digital illustrations and imagery for the digital arts and web industries. Currently a student of The Art Institute of Seattle Jesse Diaz is underrepresented within the larger graphics arts community. The goal of creating a website is to extend the capacity to generate recognition by allowing easy access to previous work. By creating a well designed an easy to navigate web portfolio Jesse Diaz can easily showcase work and capabilities for future clients and employers. The feel of the website should be very light as well as well organized. With lots of negative space the site will be almost monochromatic until the user is within the galleries in order to emphasize the work through color contrast. The navigation is consistent throughout the sight in order to maintain a sense of familiarity. User interaction is primarily focused within the galleries in the portfolio sections of the site. As users rollover thumbnails the project titles will unhide so that the user will know that the thumbnail is a click-able image. Within the sub-levels of the galleries users will be able to easily navigate between images or return to other levels of the site. Image assets of portfolio work will be high quality photos and renderings that showcase the work.

Good and Mediocre websites

Good Design

http://www.hutchhouse.com/

http://www.blkmtnstudio.com

Design features:

Text:

The qualities of the text used in the good websites examples were both sans-serif typefaces that were sized appropriately to the site based upon a hierarchy. The font family for the HutchHouse website is Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif. The blkmtnstudio website is a flashed based website and uses a sans-serif light for text and navigation and this sets apart the website logo that is a sans-serif bold.                           

Navigation:

Navigation on both sites is very straight forward. The blkmtnstudio website is easier to navigate on the top level since it has fewer upper level choices and contains large amounts of negative space. However once inside the lower level portfolio section you have a navigation system that is based on how the user moves the mouse to scroll that page. This is a bit confusing at first and takes a few seconds to get used to.

The HutchHouse website has very standard navigation cues throughout the site and makes it easy to move around.

Links:

The thing that makes the HutchHouse website’s links successful is that they just include a small amount of project information with the image and give the user the option to get more in-depth if they should choose to rather than cramming all the information into one place.

The blkmtnstudio website’s links are kept to a minimum at the higher level and this gives the website a clean and airy feel.

Graphics:

The HutchHouse website uses graphics that is consistent with its identity and is all vector imagery.

The blkmtnstudio website uses a well balanced combination of vector and raster imagery and does a good job of not letting the raster images overpower the vector images.

General Design: Summarize the aspects of the overall design that make a website successful.

What I like most about the HutchHouse website is that it allows you to choose from four different theme variations for its website. This instantly game a sense of connection in that I could customize how I wanted to view the website based upon my preferences.

What I like most about the blkmtnstudio website is how light and clean the website looks. It gives a sense of well thought out design for the whole site.

Note:

The purpose for both these websites was easy to determine. The HutchHouse website wants to work with you to design a website. The blkmtnstudio website wants to display previous work they have done in order to gain future work.

Mediocre Design

http://www.aurum3.com

Design features:

Text: Summarize the qualities of the use of type that make a website unsuccessful.

The Aurum3 website uses the "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif font family and is legible but the sizing between the headers and the body copy is dramatically different and makes the body copy seen undersized.            

Navigation:

The navigation on the header is very small and the color change on the mouse rollover is very slight and almost nonexistent.

Links:

Links, when located, work fine but are very similar in color to the call to action in the header which is not a link.

Graphics:

The Aurum3 website uses a combination of vector and raster images but is primarily vector. The thumbnails within the featured work section on the homepage and the work page are not aligned.

General Design:

The overall design of the Aurum3 website is, in my opinion, mediocre. The sidebar is too wide and has way too much information to digest. There are alignment issues in the featured work selections on the home page as well as within the work page. The footer image is very large and a distraction if you scroll that far on the page.

Note:

The purpose for the Aurum3 website was a little bit more difficult to determine without them calling out what they do in their call to action banner. Without this “spelling it out for you” this website looks like any other website.

Skills Inventory

Name: Jesse Diaz

Department: Digital Design

Are you Graduating this Quarter? No

If not, current graduation date by Quarter/Year: Spring/10

Online Social and Professional networks: Facebook

Website URL (if already developed): None

What software experience do you have? (explain all that apply)

Photoshop: Intermediate

Fireworks: Novice

Illustrator: Intermediate

Flash: Intermediate

Dreamweaver: Novice

HTML:

InDesign: Intermediate

Other: Sketchup,After Effects

Tell what your objective for the class to the best of your knowledge:

Learn iWeb?I would rather be learning Dreamweaver but it would be good to know both

Publish web site? I would like to get a good understanding of the how's and why's of creating a portfolio website

Revise and update current site? I don't have a current website, but I understand the importance of maintaining and updating websites

Begin the process of a professional web presence? Your web presence is an extension of your professional self so having a good website for peers and employers to view is important.