OUGD504 Studio Brief 03 A Brief History Of... First Sketches and Scamps

When I really sat down and started thinking about how to crate this website I got quite tied up in knots trying to work out what to do first. So, I took the advice numiko gave and looked at the information that the website needed to contain and tried to order it and create some kind of hierarchy. The result of which can be seen below. 

I then also spent some time thinking precisely about the purpose, target audience and unique selling point of the website.

Then I started sketching out some scamps. The context of the web page frame really helped me to understand the space I was working with. However, I think that perhaps I was going bout tis all wrong. I think it would have been more useful to draw out the navigation and content maps first because then I could shape each page structure around the content rather than the other way around.

As you can see for each of the designs I have done a content map and showed how they would link. I think that when improving on these initial designs, this structure is what I should go to first because it seems to be the connections between pages that have the most potential when it comes to inventiveness that has function. The design above uses the premise of me designing logos for each walk based around a plant i collected on each walk and possibly the colours I sampled. However, I need to be careful to used a concept or method/equation that unites these logos under the banner of salt of the earth.

Although I have not designed the logo yet I know the spaces that I want it to fill and I am erring towards something circular at the moment because it can be crisp and clean but also soft and welcoming.

This is one of the more interesting scrolling websites I have considered, where the roots of the plants on the homepage guide you down to their relevant walks. I have also added a way of adding in photos of the walks, literally branching off to the side. Each of these photos will be overlaid with the walk branding or logo, as detailed in the notes down the side of the page.

I also looked at creating a frame from the aspects of the maps I looked at earlier in the brief. I am uncertain about this design because it seems so 'mission control' in a less than pleasant way. I will need feedback on this specifically in the crit. 

The image above is a sample of the way a 'walk' page would sit in tis scrolling website. A map within the frame and the grid inherent in the map dictates the placement of information as it glows to life when the curser is over it. This could be a way of intergrating my illustrations at the points that I found the on the walks.

The layout for this is once again a scrolling design but this is less integrated into its design tan the previous sketch.

I think the next step is to look at designing the logo of salt of the earth and how this can dictate and aesthetic and individual walk logos of the website.