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).