Bestwood Client Project ~ Background development!

We decideded that the plain white background was not working and we needed to do something to make the site itself stand out.

First we thought of using stripes and used stripe generator to achieve this, but once we experimented with this we decided this was not the way we wished to progress.

We then experimented with photoshop patterns but couldnt find one we liked and found them all too dark in colour often using black or to plain when lighter.

Next we tried spots using pixelknete and experimented in different colours to see if colours could be incorporated since we didnt like black, we tried different shades of greens but found that this clashed with the colour schemes used within the site itself.

So we went back to a simple grey and white as this seemed to work best within the design and with the use of these lighter tones the site didnt end up looking as dark as when black was used.

And this is the final design we have decided to go with :)

Bestwood Client Project - Colours!

Ashley has the images of the new 'earthy' colour scheme but for reference I am writing the code colours incase I loose them :)

Home page - main - #76d938 tab - #698744

Things to see & do - main - #bde400 tab- #97b30d

History - main - #c2c013 tab - #dcdb39

Find us - main - #e9c02c tab - #c58b00

Contact - main - #cf5713 tab - #b14102

Bestwood Client Project ~ 3D Max continued!

I was a good egg and returned to uni to continue working on the floor plan. By doing so I have sorted the lighting windows and adjusted the brick work....and even created the very first movie! So tomorrow will be the making of the rest of the movies ready to incorporate into my flash designs.

Bestwood Client Project ~ Onto 3D Max!

Ok so we thought we would try creating the floor plan in 3D Max and then adding the interactivity within flash as I was struggling to achieve a 3D feel simply using flash. However I am not the worlds best at 3D Max...but I have started to create something I feel is pretty respectable for my knowledge of it! I also need to go back to folders from last year and work out how to use cameras etc fun fun!

So that will be tonights job as well as finalising what will be included as the sites worth seeing on each floor.

Bestwood Client Project ~ Design Development!

Today I have developed the intial idea in terms of design and now have the basic of each page with the improved design.

I am currently trying to work out the linking of the buttons so that the animations of the floor moving in and out, all works but this is proving harder than I thought and may have to ask the team tomorrow...its mind boggling stuff!

Bestwood Client Project ~ Initial design!

This is the basic design idea i wish to build on for the interactive floor plan after completing research. Obviously work is needed on the design but the basics are there!

Bestwood Client Project ~ Interactive - research!

Research #1

http://www.heinekenexperience.com/experience.html

This highly interactive design is very successful and the design I wish to base my interactive around. The use of the slide out layout is really effective and the level menu is clear and easy to use. The use of the images within the levels allows the viewer to place things within the building so it is familiar when they actually visit the site. The information is shown when the user clicks on the image however I feel the information should be included outside of the interaction rather than within it like this. The use of bright colours also works well and it makes it seem vibrant and fun which would appeal to the audience we are aiming to attract.


Research #2

http://www.halswellweddings.co.uk/thehouse_plans.html

http://www.halswelllodge.co.uk/houseplans.html

This is a simple layout for a floor plan, which involves the use of rollover by the user, then to indicate this the floor level rises for that section. Once you click on the room there is a use of light box to bring up and image related to it.

The levels menu is small and at first went un-noticed to me but once I realised what it was it turned out the design worked well. You simply click on the layer representing the level you wish to view. There is also a text-based menu to do the same along the bottom.

The disadvantages to this floor plan are the colour scheme being bland since it is only in black and white. The use of text and blue print style image gives the design a slightly old fashioned feel so changes would have to be made since we are designing for a youth/community audience.

Research #3

http://www.terminal5.ba.com/en/map/

The design in this example is very complex with the use of a 3d image of the terminal, and without any images of the inside of the engine house something I will not be able to achieve. However there is the use of a highlight system to show certain areas within the terminal and this is something that can be incorporated into the design for the engine house.
The disadvantage of this design is the fact that there are not hot spots within the actual image. As the user I found this was expected

Bestwood Client Project ~ Site Visit!

Since we couldn’t get a response from the contractors it was suggested by Deb that we visited the site and got some shots of the outside and surrounding area. However this proved extremely unsuccessful as when we finally made it to the park the engine house and wheel were covered by scaffolding, so any pictures were not likely to be successful! We tried our best and took a some shots and walked up the road a bit to see if there were any angles we could get a better image from, and finally found a shot that could prove successful with some editing as the trees in the foreground hid the scaffolding from view. This is the image we will attempt to use as the iconic background image and can be found on Katie’s blog :).

Bestwood Client Project ~ Meeting minutes!

Bestwood Client Project ~ Site map!

We completed a basic site map to finalise the design as a whole. The colours represent the colour scheme for each of the pages. As although the layout chosen by the client doesn't include a colour change dependent on the page the user was visiting we felt this was an element from the other designs we wished to include.

Bestwood Client Project ~ Roles!

After creating the site map we have now sectioned elements for each of us to do within the project. This will allow us to complete our individual sections over the weekend ready for the presentations next week.

Kirsty
*Level game
*Things to do Page
*Client Communicator



Ashley
*History page
*Interactive timeline
*CSS templates



Katie
*History research
*Maps page
*Image optimisation



Group
*Home page
*Contact page
*Page layouts

Bestwood Client Project ~ Contact #1!

Finally allowed to contact someone so we could actually take a visit to the site I was tasked to get in touch with Bob Gow the leader of the Volunteers at Bestwood. However once I managed to locate his number and get in touch, he informed me that he really only looked after the park itself and that I would really need to talk to the contractors about the visit as at present the site is still a hard hat area! After explaining what we wish to achieve from the website and who we are currently in contact with, Bob kindly said he would talk to the contractors and ask them to contact me regarding whether or not we are able to make a visit to the site. So now it is just a waiting game…

Personal porfolio #1!

Ok its been a very slow process as turns out designing for yourself is harder than anything else! However I have now completed a design for my personal portfolio. I wanted to use a colour I associate with so decided on a green similar to that of my laptop. The page also needed to incorporate a bit of me, and I decided to achieve this with the image of me and the speech bubble as we all know by now that I enjoy talking. The speech bubble will become a flash image eventually if I decide on this design.

Feel free to comment :)