All Done

Today I finished my website and handed it in for marking. It can also be seen on http://www.arctosdesign.com/digital4/index.html
And all other files I have made over the course of the assignment can be seen at http://www.arctosdesign.com/digital4

All Photos used in the gallery are my own.
The top of the island is a photo I took in fiji of mana island.

Photos used in my website can be found at the following locations:

island_bottom: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1022412
Tree: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1011331
Leopard Background: http://appleology.com/images/space-desktop.png
Earth: http://astronomy2009.ie/_Media/blue_earth.jpg

I did get an error on my website when you click on a link and the page loads it has some button error but everything appears to work fine so I am not phased to much by that and will look in to that when I am more relaxed and have less work on but at the moment the site functions perfectly fine online which is good and I am happy with it.

I will also still look into blue screening myself on to the island to roam around as that whole idea of things in my head and imagination.

sweet well then this is me signing out.

OK so...I have been wee bit busy and have been working quite hard to come up with a website I can be happy with.

I had two ideas and both were really good I thought. MY first was to have a Full Screen Slide Show that would also have links to a Gallery, Links,About and Contact page. Which in it's self was very simple and I manages to get working. But since there is no decent way of getting help with flash coding I Had a problem with centering other content on the page along with the slide show and that was really the key to making that website work well. So about 3 hrs away from finishing the website I can to kick it in because there was simply no way I would get the help or advice I needed from forums, discussion groups of videos to help me so I resigned my self to the fact that it was to complicated for me at the moment.

However my second I dea which I thought was going to be the more complex idea turned out to be a far simpler method and one in which I could experiment with my flash knowledge building the entire website (apart from the AS box ...lightbox effect for gallery and scroll in the news section) by my self which is nice as I feel it works, loads and runs smoothly and has a really nice look about it that is relatively me.

I do have some enhancements I would like to do in the future one of them being taking some green screen footage of my self walking around and place me on the island doing random things...perhaps on click or rollover actions to which would be sweet.I would also like to make the contacts phone a bit more noticeable and add tool tips for the various buttons on the island saying various things. But I simply don't have time at the moment and to rush those elements would rune what I have got at the moment.

I will put a link to a copy of both the failed website and the one I am going to go with next time I post.

Here are some examples of cool type focused websites

Here are some example of website I found while looking for inspiration I think they all handle type really well and posses some nice features for a website.

image 1
>image 2
>image 3
>image 4
>image 5
>image 6
>image 7
>image 8
>image 9
>image 10
>image 11
>image 12
>image 13
>image 14
>image 15
>image 16

Flash website Inspiration

here's some cool sites I like:

http://www.agencynet.com/

http://www.testemale-photos.com/

http://okaydave.com/(a bit to complex for what im wanting but the pics everywhere looks good)

http://www.designsul.pt/ (ok inside container holds content?? sure. looks cool tho.)

http://www.paregos.com/main2.html (nice)

http://www.sectionseven.com/ (nice pre-loader and the site is a very cool example of online book and looks good)

http://www.ownyourc.com/ (fancy but not really inline with what i want)

http://www.piotrowskimichal.com/ (similar to one about but its a wee bit nicer)

http://neovision.jp (interesting way to display images)

http://zoomquilt.org/ (good fun bit of flash)

http://www.aksident.be/ (generates some interesting concepts)

http://www.oddodesign.com/ (how not to spray pint ur VW)

http://prismgirl.org (love the graphic but navigation was hard to find)

http://www.kindnessandhumility.com/ (clean simple and nice way of presenting images...hard to read the links so close tho.)

http://www.javierferrervidal.com/ (cool and nice gallery)

http://www.citrus7.com.br/ (very nice colour and type BUT...could be done with CSS Id think besides the flying lemon)

http://www.filippasmedhagensund.com (really nice way of displaying the images)

http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html (this looks like fun)

http://azzabee.com.au/(chucked this in because I like how navigation looks on top of photos really well thought about colours)

http://www.neubauberlin.com/NEUBAUISM_KIT.html (nice type)

http://www.visionstreetwear.com (large movie bg's are everywhere)

http://jlern.com/ (this is very cool)

http://www.fl-2.com/(not flash but good type example)

http://www.simsnow.com/ (good type and nice interaction)

http://www.hungryman.com/

http://www.switchmw.com/(not flash but very cool)

http://www.nuvisuallanguage.co.uk

http://seanklassen.com/

http://marconi.nu/ (definite inspiration)

http://www.gianlucafallone.com (exactly the kinda thing I was thinking)

http://www.nosurprises.it/ (interesting)

http://www.nopattern.com (nice gallery)

http://www.timflach.com/ (photography website nice and good work 2)

http://www.ilkilkilk.com (not flash but very nice)

The new ASSIGNMENT!!!

Ok so term two kicked off pretty good and we have hit the Flash segment of Digital 4 which is so far turning out to be very fun. I really enjoy flash and I am excited about a chance to finally be taught some flash by a tutor rather than struggling around the internet trying to figure it out and the fact that we are now learning As3 makes it so much better.
So the idea is that we are creating a website.

I have decided I am going to design a portfolio site.

I take alot of photos and have had the chance to do so in many different countries and now I would like to make them a part of my portfolio...Up until now I have only only shown my Design work online so this is going to be good.
I have a couple of ideas of what I want but most of all I think simplicity is the key I want something that is "ME" it shows of the my individuality rather that everyones else. So a nice simple gallery portfolio site I dont really wana say to much at this stage but rather collect some resources which I think are good and will help inspire some ideas and ways of doing things. Otherwise should be good and I hope to learn alot from this assignment.

Website finished

Well today is hand in day and I think the website is finished.
It has been a pretty cool assignment to do and I have enjoyed it. I think it has been really good in the sense that last year I began learning about CSS in John's Tutorial classes and this year doing Digital 4 I have been able to develop on that knowledge and I feel as though I am starting to get the whole CSS layout thing which is cool.
I think the website came out alright there are a number of issues mainly just the index page sometimes when it loads the slide menu at the bottom stuff up which is not so cool and I am working on a mac so I can't test the website in IE and I dont have fire fox so testing in that hasn't been that often only at times at tech. Other than that tho I quite like it and with some further development(mainly just content layout with images) I think it would look quite nice. Also while I remember I couldn't figure how to get the main content section of the site to stretch while holding the footer in the correct place so each separate page has had to be given a different style with hight for that box which is a little bit silly cos it should stretch but I guess it is something I need to work at getting right in my next website or when this one is done being marked.

here is the working version online.
TNC

And I will hand in a USB with all the files on to John today.

Website Pretty much finalized and these are the options

So I have been playing around with having a sidebar navigation and what that would look like on the layout and I have also been trying to find a beeter way of displaying the support and events.
So herre are some links to different examples.

http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/index.html
http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/template.html
http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/template2.html
http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/template3.html
http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/menu_test.html
http://www.arctosdesign.com/rudadub/about2.html

Navigation Menu

So today I have been experimenting with navigation menus. I have moved the navigation menu to the side of the content instead of it being above it like John suggested. And I have been playing around with other menu styles that will add effect to the page just because I am aware that it is a you site therefor needs to have a few bells and whistles that look impressive(well atlast for my skill level appear impressive). So searching the web I found a few potential scripts and examples along the lines of what I was wanting they may even be helpful to the rest of the class hence why I am putting the links here.




And this is a sweet recourse for CSS Javascript Menus.

http://www.noupe.com/ajax/13-awesome-java-script-css-menu.html

(just a good CSS resource in general)

So not sure what I will do yet I am just customizing the first one and seeing how it feels on the page.

Updated Blog

I finally had a bit of time to personalize my blog a bit. I din't Want anything complex and infact don't have time to make that either just a nice clean image that relates to me but also just looks good. And I am happy with how it is looking. I will properly still come back later on ad change text colors around a bit more add a footer image(only a small wee rudadub that when clicked takes you to the top of the page...Its getting a bit long Im finding.
I also added a slideshow with some of my work its not my favorite works or even meant to be amazing at the moment its just there so I can get a feel for the blog nd where I want to take it in the future (I would also love to know how to style the thing cos it doen't really fit in that well).

As for an update on the actually website progress. John my tutor recommended that I try play around with the navigation instead of horizontal make it vertical so I will give that a try. otherwise he said he was happy with the wor so far so I am just continuing to work away at it. I have finalized the drop down menus sorted out the problems I was having there so the overall CSS is done its just a question of styling the elements that will be introduced in the other pages. So at the moment that is what I am doing. I am creating the needed CSS for the template that will cover all the other pages as the home page is a little different having those four columns of type.

Ok well I better start my art history essay.

Update to website

I have begun to change the layout I made in class the other day to make it fit to the revised layout I have come up with. I managed to find a cool jQuery script which will make for the bottom menu. At the moment I have only included it in to the layout and havent really taken into consideration how it looks colour wise since they are not the final images to be used there.
As for the layout its self I will do some more work on the later to night sort out how the body copy will look on the from of the page make the links look right and also try incorporate the new menu a bit more in to the style of the website.

New Layout Idea

So basically I had a chat to my tutor about my design and he sugested that:
A) It was a bit dark on the background.
B) That the mid section of the design(the coming soon bit) was a bit to large and taking up to much screen space not giving the text(body copy) the correct placing on the page.
Original Design


So based on those ideas I came up with this:




After deciding I really liked that last layout I searched goodle for a non-flash way of creating that elastic menu thing hoping to make one prefferably out of CSS.
I found two solutions:

http://www.phatfusion.net/imagemenu/index.htm
http://www.artviper.de/ImageMenu/

the both use css and Javascript but I like the way they work and they are easy to implement. I have only found one problem so far and that is that the images have to be a set size it one is smaller it treats it like a background and repeats it rather than just going to the size of the image. Which would mean that if ever used something like this for a client I would have to explain that all images must be the same size(could limit the usefulness of it to).

Brief and Sketches for Layout

This is the project Brief we have been given.

Bief

I did these sketches a while ago but they are apart of the assignment so I will put them up anyway.

Sketch1
Sketch2
Sketch3
Sketch5

Lightbox on blogger

Thanx to Lokesh Dhakar's Lightbox 2 I have been able to implement Lightbox in to my blog allowing me to be able to display images a little bit nicer (in my opinion anyway).

so I just have to test it now.

image #1

Concept Statement

After spending a long time coming up with different layout idea and even making a layout in photoshop I have decided to reverse and go back to the start as I felt the way I was heading was a bit bland.

Concept Statement

To design and build a website that is youthful but also well designed.

So I have chosen to build a youth website. It is something I have been wanting to do for several years but haven't had time. It also allows me to have the chance to explore mixing good graphics with a well thought out and designed site. (hopefully anyway) I just feel that mixing these to elements is an area I maybe lacking in and taking a project where I can explore this with the guidance of someone who knows will allow me to make a good job of it.(again hopefully).