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- Home page
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- Interior page
As of 11/8/09, here are my final design comps: the home page and one interior page for my consulting practice’s website.
The class critique definitely improved the final product, in my opinion. I am much happier with having less on the home page. It is hard for me to work on this website that is for my own business and stay objective–so the class critique was of great value. The key points I got out of the class critique were:
- there was no one focus
- they couldn’t tell what the site was for
- there was too much going on (supports points 1 and 2)
- needed to tie the red logo in somehow–or change the color of the logo
To address the “confusion” issues (points 1 and 2), I removed items, added a statement about what the site is for, changed the photo and created a much stronger hierarchy of information. I think that each section of the design now fits in a hierarchy–based on what I want the user to focus on first.
The photo was a huge problem. I was having a very hard time finding a meaningful photo that conveyed something about what this consulting practice does to help nonprofits and yet not be totally boring–such as showing a graph or “fork in the road” or and arrow pointing both ways. I found that I wanted to have a person in the photo to give it life–but I definitely did not want one of those trite photos of everyone around the conference table at a meeting. I had “clipped” many photos from Getty–and finally resorted to asking my husband to help me (I had been asking my friends all along, but they didn’t have the chance to see all the possibilities I had saved from the Getty site). My husband made suggestions–similar to those I had thought of (Fork in the road, etc), but we both agreed those photos were “dead.” He noticed the one I had clipped of the runner running towards a mountain. He thought it speaks to what the consulting practice addresses–helping organizations achieve their goals on what can be a grueling run to the top–and he noticed the arrow on the rock wall. On the original photo–that arrow is yellow. He suggested changing it to red to match the logo. To me–that is the touch that makes this photo work. Without the arrow, it is too cliched. With the arrow, not only does it compliment the logo–but it compliments the “>” that is part of the logo. I decide to make the runner’s shirt match another color in the website. On the original photo, the shirt is orange. When I buy the final photo, I hope to do a much better job replacing the color of the runner’s shirt and the arrow.
The photo–as much as I was fighting it–does affect what color scheme looks best–as does the color of my logo. When I ended up with the final color scheme, I felt is was functional–it works. It doesn’t send me or inspire me as a color scheme–but it makes all the parts work together. It also doesn’t totally fit one of my early critieria which is to have a warm color scheme. While this color scheme may not be as warm as some others, I don;t think it is “cold” feeling–so I am OK with it. When I think back about where this design has been and where it ended up–I think of what Jennifer told us in class: good design is not necessarily good art. This is not a work of art, but I think if functions well now.
To address the color tie-in with the logo, I tried the logo in another color and decided I like the way the red “pops.” So then I tried a thin red line above the footer. That was fine–but decided to add the other thin red line at the top. On the interior page, I originally just carried over those two thin red lines. After many attempts at various colors, I finally arrived at using red in the “subtitles” on the interior page. And–due to the red and the photo changes–I ended up going through many iterations of the colors again–and ended up with a set of colors I didn’t expect. But I think they work.
