3.12.09

MX: project two final

alas, working wire frame website.


you can view the image, or better yet, click for live site! gergwerk.com

when thinking of the design for my site, I wanted the navigation minimal, very easy to understand, and be accessible at all times. the focus should be about my work, my achievements and information, not ornate elements that take away, or distract, from the them. one thing i am going to work on immediately is centering the content as apposed to having everything reside on the left side of the screen. during the process of making this site, i am most proud to remember how to build css document, and attach actionscript 3.0 to smoothly scroll through the images. i built this all myself! i had some help to figure out the scrolling images, thanks to josh, ian and michael dead man may. i struggled most with considering what i am capable of producing, and what i originally had planned the website functioning (keyboard functions that would toggle on and off navigation and flip through content). im not exactly sure what i learned through the process. it takes me a while to reflect upon experiences to pull out what i really learned...but if i had to say what i learned, it's that everyone has their own way of building these things (websites through css and actionscript). nobody is wrong for building it differently, just find out what works best for you and use it to the best of your capability. apply what you know to anything, even if what you know is just a little.

3 comments:

Veronica said...

I think overall the site is highly intuitive and easy to use. Navigation is very clear and you always know where you are on the site. The only adjustment I could recommend would be what was already brought up in class: that the side rollovers shouldn't be transparent. Another thing I'm not really in love with is having to click through the nested categories to get to an individual project. For example, I have to click work > design > project name to get to something in particular and I think it might be more engaging if someone could go straight to a project from the get-go. I'd imagine that the intermediary imagery would be engaging enough (assuming its similar to the initial graphic) that it would still be interesting enough even if you decided to stay with this direction.

Although very easy to get , I don't think that this is particularly nontraditional. I feel like I have seen a lot of portfolios like this with the nested navigation. The only really novel thing is clicking through the images by their edges, but I don't really feel like its something that pushes boundaries. I know you had some great brainstorming ideas with the use of keyboard commands, perhaps it just hasn't come together in a cohesive manner yet?


It seems like you might have an awful lot of projects in this. If I understand it right, you might have upward of 60 projects. 4 main categories, two of which have a number of subcategories, and several images in each. Maybe scale it back a little and kill the subcategories in illustration and photography.

Greg Gentry said...

Kaufman, i think your site functions very nicely and also stays clean and professional. I really want to be able to click on those different pieces of that collage image on the home page, that could possibly lead me to your work or maybe it is just interactive and those parts could animate? I just think that sweet image should be more than just a static image.

Your structure shows that you know how to organize and present your image to a viewer that is easy to follow, understand and navigate. I like how you toss in the landscape tween between different shots of the work. I like that look and it really makes your site that much more dynamic. I really think the beauty of your site will come into place with the arrangements of those screens for each project you have. Them being different scales and crops of images will be very engaging for the user to explore and i think you can have a lot of fun compositionally when creating each one. I would also maybe look into rollover states when looking at those crops of imagery for each project.

I would think also how your music could come into play because it is much apart of who you are and maybe could host a spot for details about you being a DJ and how you could even be for hire?

Your navigation is nice in how it has a bread crumb look so that you can see exactly where you are and it is easy to get to where i want to go because of the nice way you have structured it.

Im really excited to see more of this site looking like gerg because im not really feeling it right now. I know it will be great so i think they way you have laid out your site a simplistic way will allow you to explode and go crazy design on how it looks and feels, with a simple structure i feel the user will not be overwhelmed but will be able to focus and enjoy your work. You have categorized your work in a clear and easy way as well i think that is simple but structured at the same time. I also think you have a lot of space once you go inside a project to show where they are in looking at different views and i would maybe like two ways of navigation, the invisible button you have now (which need to be seen) and also maybe a second way which could show smaller thumbnails so you could jump more of a non-linear way.

Great job and work man, im ready to see the content plugged in. Good luck, can't wait to see it.

Kimberly Potts said...

Hey Greg. Great site! Hope you are well. Baylen's mom here. I JUST opened my first Flickr acct. I have several. Saw your email. Sorry I didn't get that sooner. You probably don't remember it, hehe. I am not doing the art gallery thing anymore. I am designing boutique websites. I just started so the templates are a little rough. I still haven't defined my style yet. Check it at www.smackingdarcy.com

Take care,
Kimberly