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Evaluation

I won't lie and say that I enjoyed doing this project. I'm not a fan of Flash Catalyst and since I'm fairly stuck in my ways of coding and using Dreamweaver, I don't imagine it'll be my go-to software for any future projects in website design - however, I still think it was good to learn the software itself in a way to figure out other Adobe software and the way in which they function.

The concept of self promotional websites is something that I'm really into and is a great way to not only advertise your work, but also your skills as a designer in the website you create. I found that Flash Catalyst wouldn't be the best way for me to do that, since I have so many more skills in coding and Dreamweaver. However, there's always room to learn new ways to create, and once I gotten into the frame of mind that understood the way Flash Catalyst worked, it no longer felt like a chore.

In the same way that I enjoy coding and the challenges it brings, Flash Catalyst did that for me. I felt out of my depth, despite the lessons we'd been taught, but I felt that this was because I always aim to do something larger, more extreme and more complicated than the basic website functions!

Overall, I found it an interesting experience and definitely benefitted from various aspects of the project, such as research and problem solving, but I can't say that I enjoyed using Flash Catalyst or found it enjoyable to try and design a website inside of it. Maybe in the future, I will use Flash Catalyst in a different way, but for now it's not for me when it comes to designing websites.

Despite all this, I am pleased with the result, my website. It was fun to be able to experiment with different fonts rather than be restricted by web safe fonts only, for example. I'm definitely not been converted, but now I can appreciate the potential that Flash Catalyst has to offer!

Contact Page

The contact page was something that I knew from the beginning I wanted to keep simple. Nowadays, the majority of work done by graphic designers is based online and I wanted to make sure that was obvious with my contact page. Again, I kept to the structure of the large title text, but didn't want to over complicate the page.

I added my email address and then to balance out the rest of the page, I added three buttons, all linking to online social networking profiles that I felt were relevant to my graphic design.

These buttons were found online, and then I simple changed the colour to match the rest of the layout. I then made them into buttons and directed them to the right URL.

This is a good example of how simple Flash Catalyst is to use when creating buttons and interactivity.

Site Map

A simple part of the website design process is to create a site map in which to follow when creating the layout of the website. I would prefer having more in my portfolio section however I feel that at the moment I'd like to keep the highest standard of work on the website, rather than just a large selection of second rate work.

The site map is an important aspect of the design process as it allows a visual aid when creating layout designs and links in quite directly with layout elements such as navigation etc.

Portfolio Page(s)

Since I haven't developed on my portfolio recently, and most of the work I've done over the years, I'm not ultimately pleased with, I have a small selection on this page. Again, I followed the structure of the title and thumbnails maintaining the same width.

I didn't want to overcomplicate my portfolio page since I wanted it to be accessible to all those who view it. The only effect I put on the picture thumbnails was a lowered opacity on the over state of the button (as you can see on the Plymouth Student thumbnail in the screenshot).

When it came to showcasing the various aspects of each portfolio piece, I still wanted to maintain the structure I've had throughout the website. So rather than just displaying my portfolio pieces in a normal fashion, I decided to make use of Flash Catalyst's abilities and make a scrolling panel the same width as the title text.

After a few attempts at defining what I wanted from the scroll panel, I found it really easy to get the effect I wanted. I mounted all of my images onto a iMac screen PSD I'd downloaded and combined them all into these scroll panels.

I'm really pleased with the outcome of this little experiment on the portfolio section and now I know the basics of this - I can definitely see myself taking it further should I ever use Flash Catalyst again to create a website.

About Page

I wanted to continue the theme of a large typographic title for each page. I really like the Tetra font and wanted to continue that throughout the design. However, I wanted to maintain some sort of structure.

As the screenshot above shows, I wanted to maintain structure with a series of guidelines. All title text inside the pages was to be 542 pixels wide so I changed the size and width of each title to fit into this structure.

This proved difficult sometimes with smaller words, or particularly long words, but I still think that the theme maintained continuity throughout which is what I wanted to achieve.

Home Page

The original layout of this page wasn't the clearest - so I thought I'd design it to make it clear what the idea was behind it. I thought I would save the portfolio pieces for a later page, so I could add an introduction the home page.

I wanted to convey my personality and sense of humour with this introduction - so using a decorative font to spell out 'HI THERE' - a common phrase I'm known for using! - was the first idea I had. I also wanted to outline my basic skills, rather than lose them in a body of text about myself.

The home page was also the page where I could start to set standards for the rest of the website. I wanted to maintain the spot colour of the pastel green, but found that black was too strong against the delicate colour so reduced it to grey.

I wanted to have a typographic piece for my logo, so decided on Tetra font. I also wanted to reiterate the spot colour so used it on the over element for my navigation links.