..so is it the last hurrah for The State at tommorrows presentation?? :'(

...good to know you're taking it well Ben

Jack

THATS RIGHT, WE TOOK THE PHOTOS OURSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feedback from prototype website >>

We had some input from Simon Rudkin yesterday on our website. The main points he made about our site (from his experience,) was that once we had completed the prototype, it would then be clear what content you would actually want on the site! Although this wasn't useful in our case, he found that this occured quite often in his work. A more clear point he made about our site was that we needed a title on our homepage. He pointed out that almost EVERY site had this! This isn't a case of spelling out what the content of the site is, but is just the oppurtunity to use a heading, and an appropriate typeface. We also recieved some peer group feedback today from the rest of the cohort. We tested out each others sites for usability, communication and visual style. This feedback is in our sketchbooks although 1 point I would like to make to clear from 1 piece of feedback is that WE DID TAKE OUR OWN PHOTOS, AND DIDN'T TAKE THEM FROM THE INTERNET THANKYOU VERY MUCH! BOOYAAA! >:)

ps. great job today people! :)

J

Making the site solid

Like we discussed earlier in the project we need an intro page (GIF animations! noone eva gets bored of those ;) ) An idea could be simply to just click on a tram ticket to enter the tram(homepage). Add a lace boarder and shoe texture as well and even something as crazy as the site title - "I know you got Sole" and that could do the trick of introducing people into the site and setting the scene.

The idea of incorporating some of the shoe patterns in the tram page to add to the shoe theme has just flashed through my mind as well. Oh! and sound. We've got a solid template to work off and now we can have some fun tweaking up to look (and sound) ace.

I've got another radical idea but it might be a bit much for the last day tho I'll run it by you tommorrow, it involves Flash...

Jack

:)

Good hustle today team! Prototype is done! Just have to do a bit of tinkering (expected,) and we should be good! We'll get cracking on the A2 boards too 2moz, cya later!

aaaaaaannnnnnnd....thats the metro page and profile pages SORTED!! Imageready and everything. It's now just a case of weaving our dreams together on the beast that is Dreamweaver - roll on the technical difficulties lol

Jack

Ben and I (the cavemen of Graphic Design...) have designed the homepage....

ta daaa!!

Okay..not ta daaa..coz it the pictures won't upload...but be sure they'll be on later.

Just know that it's done...and it's good.

X

Dance Mat Re;

Jack! I've included a similar idea with the dancemat navigation in my ideas for the A2 boards.. all will be revealed later!! >> ;)

Bring in the Dance Mat

thinking back to Bens earlier idea about the dance mat arrows, how about if we animated some dancemat game-style arrows above the video on After Effects as it played?

Jack

...it's like watching Saturday Night Fever :)

Jack

Shoe video on profile?

Here are two profiles of shoes we were thinking of using as video on our site. We may resort to actually just using the sound rather than a video though.

Front page developments...

My internet's finally working!! :D...

...you've all pretty much seen most of this already but for the blog record, here's some of the work I've been up too with the profile pages...


Here's my development of one of the profile pages: From the bland metro looking, but boring looking profile page to the mock ups to the final page with more of a 'shoe style' to it and an appropriate illustration expressing the shoes' 'personality' and lifestyle. Shown with and without photos on:



Here are the other profile pages with and without the photos, which appear when you roll over the thumbnails:













My next step is to get these badboys on imageready for some interactivity magic!

Jack

IMPORTANT NOTICE!

Our prototype has to be complete by the end of Monday!! All hands on deck at 10am Monday! :O

Tram Ticket

This is the tram ticket I've created on photoshop. I've added the 7/42 'size' aspect from a shoe so it contains the visual style of 'shoes' but still appears as a tram ticket. This image will be the 'return home' button on certain pages of our site.

Tram Ticket Button

List of things to do >>>

Here is a list of things I need to do for Monday (and tonight!) They probably make more sense to me than other people!
1 )Record videos of dancing i) worker shoes, ii) buisness shoes iii) skater shoes. 2) Take photos of shoes for tram scene (All) 3) Use pictures from emails to generate ideas for A2 boards 4) Send pictures on emails to other group members. 5) Construct Final Homepage on dreamweaver (Monday) 6) Anything else!

Ben, could you please email me over a few of those blank tram pics you took today..? I'll start playing with some visual styles etc..!

IMPORTANT!

The Brief says we have to also produce a mounted site map diagram and 2x A2 presentation boards showing key visual elements which best represent the style and use of the concept! Just some food for thought but we need to sort this out peeps.

100th Blog Post

Cause for a woohoo or two, no?

Anyway..similar to below idea (which I think would suit the business shoe) this is an idea for the 'additional information' page for the high heel shoe. It would spread out over the two pages, not just the one. You would be able to interactive with various parts of the page, for example, clicking on the ink splodges would direct you to information about a Nottingham based art shop...and clicking on the Gatecrasher sticker would take you to the Notts Gatecrasher site... etc - this is also where the shoes-eye-view photos could be (click on them to enlarge).

What do u guys think??

An idea for the 'additional images' page (the photos of a shoes eye view etc) I don't know if we have discussed how to display the additional information (where the shoe hangs out, where to buy etc) so I've been playing with some ideas. This is an idea for the business shoe - photos of where the shoe can be found in the city and links to a few personality aspects of the shoe - the sudoku and the guardian newspaper.

I dont know if it would fit in..but let me know if you think it can go somewhere.

Good stuff guys. I've finished the five profile illustrations and am really liking the progress on that homepage as well so if we have a meet up tommorrow I think we'll ready to add some interactivity to some of the pages!

Jack

Possibility for the front page

Good stuff people this is looking positive. Sorry if I've stormed ahead with the profile pics but I felt the time for thinking was over as we have under a week to do this. My designs are easily changeable but if we have something concrete we can always chnage our minds on reflection!

Image Ready

After the 3rd workshop on website creation, I now feel that I would be quite able to apply the animation aspect to our website in the form of GIFs. This would also apply to adding the aspect of sound to the links on there.

Get Cracking!

Well Rach, if we now concentrate on the homepage and add our own elements in terms of 'continuing the visual style', (from the profile pages,) onto the homepage, then I think you will find we are well and truly in the loop.. so don't panic! I think sometimes (in a group,) with say the snapshot photography we've been doing, it feels like your not really adding your own 'creativity' or 'style' to the project, but I think you'll be able to express yourself a bit more with the homepage layout! Your time will come! + I suggest we just throw everything we've done onto the table again tommorrow and again see what we've got, and start applying our material onto dreamweaver!

I like the profile images, however personally I feel they are quite 'samey' (not sure if that is even a word) in appearance and 'feel'... i.e. same colours and style. Are the point of the profiles not to illustrate different personalities and if so maybe we could consider a completely different look and feel to each profile? I think this is something Rob suggested in our tutorial.
Just a thought anyway.. I would like to get in on the profile designing if there is room for it..at the moment Ben and I are a bit out the loop in the way of deciding on how the site looks aesthetically and it would be nice if we could all have an input on the actual styling of the whole thing -especially as the whole thing is about how different shoes illustrate different personalities and styles..which is really, each of us. e.g. Maybe the work shoe could encorporate materials; a more rustic approach rather than purely digital images?

It is far to late/early which is probably why I am rabbiting on... so I will stop.

I like the use of the footprints in the most recent design Stu; works well.

And so to bed.

x

Actually, changed my mind about those backgrounds. These are the newbys!

Heels background image

These is the buisness image I've produced for my map section. Using only things on the list so hopefully they should fit in with Jacks. Dose anyone think we should have a background colour throughout. That browny creamy colour on the others looks quite good? What'dya reckon? p.s. the one with a background colour is actually 800x600 so is ready to rock and roll!

maps

This is probably a bit too late but I've just come across these stylised maps tweaked to fit into the appropriate style of shops they're showing, eg. goth shop etc. It's good research if nothing else.



Jack

profiles

Here are 3 of the profile templates so far, the white trainer one isnt finished yet but just to give u an idea what its gonna look like...






Jack

Homepage

Ben and rachel are going to go ahead with constructing the environmaent for the hompage scene. We have already come up with some composition ideas and are now going to go-ahead with actually taking the necessary photo/video for this aspect of the site.

Err..and now it's 80 posts.

*party popper"

We've nearly got 80 posts..that's quite exciting!

How about some road names to go with that Ay, AAYYY!

Thats ace Rach! Tell Stuart and Jack, they're the ones creating the profiles at the moment! I think I better start looking at some of those software tutorials so I can get on par with the rest of you guys!

An idea for the look of the shoe profiles... what do u guys think??

A wee sample of my idea of what the backgrounds to the shoes could look like!

And once again it has stripped the images of any black! WHYYY!!!

Reckon those 'shoes eyes' pics are gonna look awesome. Heres a sample of the map I'm producing, if we get some images on here of shoes it could look pretty awesome with some roll overs.

Some more shoes-eye-view pics!

Fat Cats Bar - High Heeled Shoe

Market Square - Business Shoe

Business shoe

Department store- Victoria Centre; High Heeled Shoe

A shoes-eye-view

A few photos I've taken for the High Heeled Shoe - still have to go and get some pics for the Business shoe, but will do that tomorrow.

A little idea for the map or other parts of the site could be shoe boxes. Their motion could easily be captured and turned into a stop animation on the site or just for roll overs?

Webpage layout

Dunno if this is any help but as I see it presently this is the layout for the website we have. If this has changed then print one of these beauts out and scribble on it. This is easily changeable on indesign, however if this is correct I think it highlights the need for a decent template for the website!

Classifieds

Here's the CLassifieds page so far. When the mouse is rolled over an image it turns to full colour. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cheers,

Jack

I noticed this charmer while working on the classifieds page. I'll let you guys fight over her... :)

Jack

Unfortunately that image looks nothing like the one on my computer, the black has been drained from it... Wierd. Hope you get the general idea.

Stu

Provisional map

Wuurrddd. Been a tad behind on work this week people but I'm back on the ball. Just knocked out an idea for the map. Think the 3D buttons could do with working on, Maybe have images of the shoes inside the shapes utilising the roll over tool: Please post some ideas. Will continue with other extra work for monday too. Go Team State!