design evolution...

The evolution of my sample website - the grid.

1. Basic grid – keeping things simple – 2 focal points, 1 main and 1 secondary
2. Addition of photo gallery and colour highlights at top – focal point 1
· Need high quality pictures to give the user a real feel of being in Peru
· Want to inject some colour to represent the vibrant culture
3. Addition of icon menu – focal point 2
· I was inspired by the design of the iPhone
· It is a very clean lay-out with metaphorical design principles in mind
· The initial background green is selected to represent freshness and lush tropical forest
4. Addition of header
· Peru is in red for contrast and add some ‘pop’ to the website
· The green colour is continued in the header with a wavy bi-colour design
· The wavy design is meant to represent the various altitudes of Peru
5. Addition of background image in icon menu
· I realized that the green I chose was horrible – not giving me the feeling I wanted to give the user
· I found a really great high quality picture of a tropical leaf
· The tropical leaf incorporates many different shades of green and adds even more of a tropical feel
6. Addition of new colour highlights at top of page
· I thought the new colour highlights are much more vibrant and add much more to the feel of the website

doing laundry...

Tide isn’t trying to portray the concept of doing laundry, but the excitement of having a fresh and clean wardrobe.

The idea of doing the laundry is not the most exciting thing in the world. With this in mind, Tide decided to go with a predominately Orange and Yellow colour scheme with a little bit of blue. The major colours, orange and yellow represent: excitement, fun, cheeriness, joy, sunshine and summer.

There is one example of metaphorical design on the home page of Tide’s website.

At the bottom, there is a place where you can find out more information about different products and cleaning tips. On either end, there are arrows that imply there is more to see. When you click on the arrows, new products/information cycle through.