ONLY Evaluation - Studio Brief 04 - OUGD504

Having a brief set by Only was exciting, I was able to get a glimpse of what it takes in the real world of web design to create something that would be used by masses of people. Being able to ask questions on aspects like grids, wireframes and even user experience gave me confidence before starting the project.

In the past, I have dabbled with web design but never gone into detail like I have with this brief. It has truly made me realise the importance of a good user experience, the site can look amazing, but if it does not do its job, and do it well, the user will be less inclined to log back onto the page, this was a huge consideration for me as this brief was to promote any ‘upcoming’ album (hypothetically) of your chosen artist.

Right off the bat, it was easy to establish things like colour and typeface choice as the brand for my chosen band (Mount Kimbie) had a pretty strong ident from their last studio album, this was one of my main reasons for choosing them. When it came to drawing wireframes, it was clear that a certain theme was apparent, I wanted a user experience orientated website. The album at the forefront and things that would accompany this, like tour dates and previous releases to encourage sales whilst the newer imminent album could accept pre-orders.

Again, having a more UX based approach, my intention was to increase sales, which I gathered was the main aspect of any promotional website. With an extremely simple yet effective layout, I was able to get all the necessary information on one page, but still not cloud the whole purpose of the website, to promote an upcoming album. This was achieved by using colours and shapes from the cover of the album throughout the whole site, constantly communicating the upcoming album whilst the user navigates their way through the page.

In terms of feedback, I received mostly positive comments for my digital wireframes, asking numerous people which they preferred gave me a much better idea of the direction I needed to go in for the final product. If I was able to take this project further, I’d have a go at animating for CSS to get more of a grasp of what’s possible in terms of moving vectors using code. Further elaborating on this point, this was what most people I had asked told me to try out, in other words, they would have liked to see more of a functional site that would represent how the shapes on the album would be represented. This would have been done if it weren’t for time constraints, and again this is something I could utilise in a future project which requires a website to be designed.

As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed the professional aspect of this brief, the fact I can utilise the experience gained from creating the website in my future career is refreshing.