Preliminary Transparency Mockup

So after writing the latest What Am I Doing? post, I figured I should keep my word and continue working on the website and portfolio. I did a really rough mockup (though the position of the image won’t change much) of my Transparency in the Sky concept for my home page.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. I like that it’s a different style than the typical streamline web design that sticks to standards as much as possible, but at the same time, I don’t know how practical it can be. My main concern here is still function and usability, and not so much aesthetics, although that’d be nice.

In the final version in my vision, this would not include the text box at the bottom nor the feedback box. If you want to see how it looks like without those boxes, roll over the edges of the “screen” box above the text box. (Don’t roll over the Flash slideshow, but the edges around it.)

With the links, I plan on shifting the tape and the transparency that holds “IVANWLAM.COM” up and down as the mouse rolls over the navigation items. I’ve actually taken individual photographs of each position, so it’s just a matter of changing the image upon cursor movement. Right now, it’s just one static image, but you may access the Experiments section in the progress report.

I think my main concerns with this concept are that 1) the image quality isn’t that good, 2) the image load time may not be practical, and 3) it’s not really accessible unless I do extra coding, though I don’t mind in the spirit of learning. At the same time, I do like how the background image accommodates to screen resolutions up to 2500px wide without leaving the image.

So this is one of those designs that I really need feedback on. Comment on this post or use the feedback box. (Notice I added a small “human verification” feature because I started getting robot spam through that form.)

Flush.

Transparency in the Nicer Sky

This is only work in progress. I haven’t code it into the home page yet, but I want to share what I have and ask for some feedback.

Since I want the image to fill the page, I had to think about different monitor sizes and accommodate for it. That’s why I took three photographs and Photomerged them together into a wider view. The green boxes show the range of monitor sizes that could be viewed (800x600, 1280x1024, 1920x1080). I’m thinking about the future as more people move into widescreen as well as a larger resolution (because I know I want to.)

I printed out the original digital layout and traced it on a transparency, so it’s half digital font, half handwriting. The image here made the type look weird, but that’s because I haven’t actually accurately measured the dimensions; these are only estimates.

One of my problems now is to decide whether I should use the same image for all the other pages with the same layout or have different images in different sections, which I don’t mind doing; it would just take a longer time.

Flush.

Transparency in the Sky

I want to try to something different. This is just an idea. If I’m sticking with this idea, I will clean up the type and the lines. I’m still thinking about making the coding and the interactivity work.

Flush.

Too Many Logos?

Is too many logos in a graphic design portfolio a bad thing? I’m looking at my projects, and a lot of what I believe to be my best work are logos. I admit that logos are my favorite things to design, and therefore I put a lot of effort into them, but I just haven’t had that much opportunity to set copies and layouts in school.

It’s not that I don’t have any good layout pieces; I just wish I had more experience with them. Maybe I feel this way because I think of “good” copy layout as something radical and really “out there,” but I would think that the majority of people in the world (and therefore clients) are fine with typical, “boring,” straight columns. And, the point of the copy is to communicate, not to go crazy to the point where it’s illegible, unless you’re David Carson.

At the same time, that “radical” layout doesn’t have to be so crazy that you can’t read it. I mean, look at that Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design book that I just mentioned last entry. The designer(s) set each essay in a different typeface, and that’s “radical” enough for something different than the regular stuff.

So yeah, like I commented on Tracy’s blog, A Deeper Look into Your Cup, (which was first to link Flush!) I wish I had more practical pieces than conceptual, even though conceptual is not bad, either.

Flush.