Design a day (so far)

As posted in January (here) I started a design a day challenge as of the 1st of Jan 2012 in an attempt to keep proactive whilst providing an opportunity to design outside of university briefs. It has gone fairly well, thought some days I have lacked motivation and posted university project development as opposed to self-initiated designs. Some designs have appeared out of the blue whilst others have took a while to develop but overall, I am pleased with what I have created so far... hopefully I'll keep it up.

http://joedesignaday.tumblr.com/

Portfolio update - Client work

For the product / range / distribution project, I decided to base it on a live project for my brother in law. He owns a building and joinery company and asked me to create a full brand re-design to be applied to a range of promotional material. He also requested a publication and website to showcase his work to potential clients.

I added this work to my online portfolio - http://www.joewarburton.co.uk

Photographing work

The photographs I currently have of my work are poorly shot with bad lighting so I need to re-photograph some of my previous work or at least start photographing my work better from now on. I love the work of Ben Jennings, an Australian designer and his photography enhances his work brilliantly - see below. The lighting is perfect and the emphasis is on the product - even the texture of the stocks are clear.

I emailed him to see how he achieved this and he gave me some really insightful advice. I have asked him a few other questions since regarding achieving quality prints as a student. He provided a link to the following guide by Jessica Walsh who works for Sagmeister.

http://blog.jessicawalsh.com/?p=198

Logo application / Spreading the word

Now that I have altered my logo design, I needed to start applying this throughout my 'online presence'. I used black on white / transparent throughout to keep it consistent.

Online portfolio - www.joewarburton.co.uk

I started to refine my portfolio, deleting old projects I didn't think were as relevant as new ones. I am looking forward to creating more work as it seems a little sparse at the moment.

Tumblr (inspiration blog) - www.joedesign.tumblr.com

I have been running this blog for a while now as Tumblr is a great way to source and showcase my inspiration. I occasionally post my own work and also reblog designs from my design a day blog.

Twitter - #joewarbo

Twitter is a great way to stay updated with design studios. I don't post as often - mainly because I rarely have anything interesting to say - but I do occasional post links out to my work. 

Behance - http://www.behance.net/joewarburton

Alongside my portfolio, I decided to create a Behance page as it is a great way to connect with other like minded creatives. I will update it throughout the third year to try and keep it up to date. 

Design a day - http://joedesignaday.tumblr.com/

I started my 'design a day' project in January and have tried to commit to it since. I try to link these designs to my main blog and post them via Twitter. I need to find a way of integrating my logo into the layout, however. 

Behance

I created a Behance page a couple of weeks back and began adding projects. I tried to utilise the same brand aesthetic I've used elsewhere online - black and white with a red/orange (#c62d2d) for links etc. I hope to continuously add projects when they arise. 

Web design workshop

An insightful seminar regarding tips for when designing and developing for the web.

Purpose

Promotion - exposure - why?
Point of contact - social networking
Selling merchandise
To persuade and inform

Audience

Industry professionals - networking
Other creatives for potential collaboration
Interested individuals / companies

What to include?

About you - be brief but insightful
Portfolio of work
Contact information - be professional
What the audience needs
Style of work / capabilities

Websites must have:

Functionality - does it work (dead links etc)
Usability - does it work well? (navigation)
Aesthetics - is it well designed? (layout and flow)

FOCUS ON THE LITTLE THINGS

The workshop that followed ensured we outlined what we intend to showcase on our site and gave us a chance to envision what design we had in mind to then receive feedback from the group. Sods law that a fire alarm went off mid way but it was a really helpful session. Looking forward to coding my own website now.

Current website

I designed this website a few months ago and asked a friend to code the site as I only knew the basics of HTML and CSS. I kept the design simple to try and draw more attention to the work with a monochrome colour scheme with a deep red / orange (#c62d2d) as the colour for links etc. Although I am pleased with this site, I am looking forward to coding my own for this module - it would be nice to refresh it.

www.joewarburton.co.uk

The index page features all my portfolio pieces which can be viewed when scrolled down. I included a header and brief description with a link out towards the right with an entire project list on the left below the logo. The navigation is situated at the top to the right of the logo. After feedback from 1910 regarding my website (here), I made the thumbnail images clickable too.

When the user scrolls, the projects are hidden by an invisible header so the logo and main navigation are easily accessible - this is also the same for the main project pages.

The portfolio pages feature a description on the project with a possible link out to further info. All the images use the same width to keep the site consistent and so the images are user-friendly on different computer sizes. 

The 'About' and 'Contact' pages simple feature text and links out to other social media sites - currently Twitter and Tumblr but hopefully this will expand.

These screenshots are the HTML and CSS coding. Currently, I have to manually add each project individually and as each page is separate, I also have to add a new link out to the project in the project list making it a fairly monotonous task to add new work or delete old work.