Wednesday 28 January 2015

OUGD503 Responsive Building The Arts Party Website Wordpress or Wix?

Once we had made all the decisions detailed in the previous post, we went onto the basic Wordpress that had been serving as a temporary website up until now.
We struggled from the outset, getting the exact look and feel that we wanted. So many complications impeded us along the way, such as getting the logo in the right place. We had to make a full header width document and then import as an image.

We also looked into adding the tag line underneath in the highlight red we had chosen. We were lucky that this orange red showed up as one of the default colours of some of the wordpress themes. 

However, The main issue we encountered was that of getting the tiled layout to the blog posts that we wanted. Even when a blog preview showed the layout we wanted we could not, through any categorisation or portfolio filing, achieve the look that each theme promised us. We soon tried to upload our own themes, but found that updates to wordpress made this impossible, along with directly editing any code.




We then in a move of surrender tried out wix. This was so much easier. We instantly managed to mould exactly what we wanted from a blank template.
Wix allowed us to create the page system that we had planned and the drop down menus.

When it came to the tiled blog posts it was much more achievable and we started to add in details such as social media interaction buttons and structures to the other pages.

We also found we could edit the appearance of the mobile website and the way the menu sat on the page worked out brilliantly. It allowed for ease of usage and the fast communication of what the site provided.

It also allowed us to remove aspects of the website that worked on the main website but not on the mobile website to keep it from being cluttered.

We chose the orange highlight colours for the mobile drop down menu. This was so that we didn't over crowd the page with colours and push the logo into the background. The choice of the orange came from the development of the flyer and the decision to try and create a slightly more gender neutral image for a very pastel based colouring that they had already established


At the end of the day we had a functioning website with a few more touches yet to come.


The next day we just added a few improvements. Like lines in the green from the logo to provide some needed structure to the page.


I also put together the side menu with the colour coded events at the party and I think this really brought together the website. 




 On the mobile website we also added the slight drop shadow you see above because, looking at it on a phone the image needed a separation from the white background of the website.



Lightening the menu was a nice addition, keeping it in continuity with the light airy feel of the rest of the website. I also felt like adding the green as the clicked colour made the website feel more cared about and clearer in its usage and navigation.

Once again to maintain continuity I did this on the main website menu as well.

This was all in keeping with the reversed out theme of the buttons all over the website. As you can see the events menu at the side of the page also sticks to this.






For the moment we limited the seeable pages so that no place holder information comes up on the website. We also set the about page as the landing page, because fast communication of the cause is one of the major necessities of this website.

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