Week 6B In-Class: Day of Design

Today was the Day of Design!  Our guest speakers included Aaris Sherin, Jennifer Aldrich, & Josh Bryant.  I attended Sherin & Bryant's presentations.

Aaris Sherin
A New York-based designer, author, & educator, Aaris Sherin founded Fit to Thrive.  She spoke to us today about sustainability and sustainable design.  She defined sustainability, a environmental, economic, and social problem as "what is best for the environment plus future generations' abilities to survive and thrive." sustainable design as "design + ideas + resources."  

An interesting fact she brought up is the today eco-design is now largely invisible, looking no different than design made of any other methods.  She then went into case studies of designers from around the globe engaging in sustainable, fair trade, and other innovative designing.

Josh Bryant
Schooled in computer science and now a lead web developer at Journey Group, Josh Bryant began by describing designers & their need to be t-shaped.  T-shaped means to have a broad familiarity or adjacent industries, a breadth, and a deep competency in your own field, a depth.  Designers are not only concerned with the visual & graphic, they solve all problems to communicating a message.

Mr. Bryant then went on to describe several positions related to his field & our field, & described what would be considered quality in each.

At the end he answered questions from my peers about core tools, daily resources, and the inevitable job search.  I did read recently that he did a presentation at Penn State about using InDesign to layout & mock-up websites.  He didn't get to my question, but I thought that was really awesome the InDesign in finally being utilized for something that isn't print & being accepted by the design community even!

Week 6A In-Class: Third Postcard Critique

Yesterday we had our critique for the third iterations in our series of postcards.  Some were glad to see I went to expressly chocolate route.  A number of critiques included...

• Certain chocolates difficult to see against dark background
• Not sure how to feel about mustard yellow as secondary color
• Type seems very stagnant 

The rest of the class was spent sketching what we want our final sites to look like, bringing together the visual elements we've created thus far through the postcard projects with the content on the current sites.

Week 5B Outside of Class: Third Postcard Design & Site Prototype

Following some comments last critique about going strictly ticket or strictly chocolate, I decided to do my second postcard (but really the third iteration) as a chocolate box.  I also decided to move away from the monochromatic by adding a secondary, very vintage yellow, somewhere between gold and mustard.  I think it works well because the color scheme can still stay very monochromatic even with the yellow because it can look so aged.

I also worked on a responsive prototype for my homepage based on my sketches.

Desktop

Mobile

1000x600 area is the header image, 650x350 is the event description, 300x350 is the ticket call-to-action, 1000x300 is sponsors, and 1000x150 is the footer.

Week 5B In-Class: Second Postcard Critique & Refined Site Sketches

Wednesday we had another class critique, this time for our second, or revised, iterations of postcards.  Some useful feedback I received on my ticket-themed post card included...

• Bottom two serif fonts don't work as well together on the post card as the script & sans-serif - too many fonts?
• Teetering between chocolate bar & ticket - pick a side
• Bump up texture
• Feels too plain

I also brought in my refined sketches for home & sub page, which I'll have to scan in when I have a few moments with the scanner.  I'm really liking this toggle menu, which will hide under the hamburger navicon in tablet and mobile views.

Week 5A Outside of Class: Second Postcard Design

I decided to go the Willy Wonka route, focusing on the ticket aspect, based on Monday's critique and some help from my professor.  I wanted to keep a distinct vintage feel as well, so I kept the card very monochromatic, as well as utilizing several typefaces as a nod back to early 20th century advertising.

Week 5A In-Class: Postcard Critique

Monday in class we did a critique of the postcards we created for our event.  There were many critiques about my design.  Some things to change included...

• Make the texture more apparent
• Single building not really effective - Need rest of cityscape
• Dark tagline hard to read against dark background
• Reconsider secondary color - red may not be best pick
• Buildings theme doesn't really speak "chocolate" - consider other avenues: chocolate bar buildings, path made of chocolate, Willy Wonka theme, etc.

For the next class I'll be creating a second postcard to replace this one.  I'm thinking I really want to keep the vintage feel I wanted to work with with illustrations of Lititz's quaint buildings.

Week 4B: Lancaster Studio Visits

Wednesday my class had the opportunity to visit three design agencies in the Lancaster area, Synapse Marketing Solutions, Godfrey B2B Marketing Agency, and the Infantree Brand Experience Studio.

Synapse

First stop was Synapse outside of Lancaster City.  The owner Bobby gave us a little bit of a tour, spending the most amount of time in the design & program room.  We got to see the designers & programmers working on all different projects at the same time, & those passing off the project communicating with each other.

Bobby then ran through a few case studies of user experience and wireframing he did for a few e-commerce site.  I thought this gave a lot of insight to some of the first considerations in building an easy-to-navigate website.

Godfrey

Next we traveled to downtown Lancaster to visit Godfrey, who specializes in business-to-business marketing.  Here we got a full tour of the building, seeing the accounts department downstairs and the design & programming departments upstairs.  After settling into the meeting room, our host Melissa, the director of creative services, shared with us a presentation on B2B & some of Godfrey's clients.  Then MU alum and designer at Godfrey, Erin, came in to share about her journey to Godfrey & what kind of stuff she is doing now.

Infantree

Lastly, just a few blocks over, was the Infantree.  The Infantree was considerably different compared to the other two agencies, particularly much smaller, both in terms of square footage and number of employees.  Our two hosts, owners Ryan & Ryan, took us on a tour.  First stop, & one I thought was the most interesting, was a mood boarding room.  To help get an idea of what kind of brand their clients want, Ryan & Ryan have them go through piles of post cards & magazine clippings with unique style to pin up on the cork board.  From there they work with the client to reduce the number of clippings on the board to get a more narrow view of the future brand.

Upstairs we met the designers/programmers in their shared work room and then up one more flight were Ryan & Ryan's office.  Overall, the entire studio had a very unique, more casual vibe that was very relaxed and inspiring.  I especially enjoyed the pieces of inspiration they had all over the place:  hung on the wall, placed on the shelves, on desks, in the hall.  There was something very nice about that.

One of the big takeaways from the day was that each agency runs differently.  As Erin said at Godfrey, it may take a while to find the agency that fits just right, but you'll find it.  Synapse was a very tight space with a lot of designers & programmers inhabiting the same space.  Godfrey was very organized & spacious, designers in their own cubicle within their own section of the building.  The Infantree was very home-y, a few designers sharing one open space.  Just from seeing the facilities but not really experiencing a day in the agency, I think my best fit would be something like Godfrey.  I need structure & my own space in life.  It allows me to clear my head & concentrate.

Overall, the day was a great opportunity to see design life in the workplace.

Week 4 Outside of Class: Lititz Chocolate Walk Redesign Postcard

Week 4A In-Class: Lititz Chocolate Walk Redesign Emphasis Discussions

Monday we spent the beginning of class reviewing our readings from last week.  We then split up into small groups to discuss our websites, what was wrong with the design (other than the visual design) & how we planned to remedy these design issues.  Our group members then gave feedback as to some other solutions or things to consider in redesigning the sites.  

For my project, the Lititz Chocolate Walk, I discussed wanting to emphasize what the main objective of the site is, which is to inform about the event & consequently sell tickets.  I also mentioned wanting to emphasize chocolate & community in the visuals.  My group suggested considering giving emphasis to the charities being helped through the proceeds of the Chocolate Walk.  While perusing through the site, we also came up with the idea, though not an emphasis, of making a visual map of locations in the walk, as well as making sure how location information is available ONLINE, not in a downloadable Word document.

At the end of class the next step in our project, an event postcard, was introduced, following a presentation on visual styles.

Week 3 Outside of Class

Two snow days last week put us behind so over the weekend I worked hard to get caught up for Monday.  

Moodboard for Lititz Chocolate Walk

Week 2B Outside of Class: Lititz Chocolate Walk Redesign Design Objectives & Persona

I called the Kiwanis Club of the Lititz Area, who host the Lititz Chocolate Walk & run the website, Friday to ask them a few questions about the two.

Who uses the website & why?
Those looking to attend the Lititz Chocolate Walk.  Site used to find day of the event, walking maps, & accommodations (as many attendants may travel from all over the country).  The site is also used to purchase tickets to the event.

What is the main reason for the website?
See above.

If anything could be added/changed about the website, what would it be?
A redesign is needed, but there has been no urgency since it hasn't been affecting sales—tickets always sell out.  Also, there is little money for a redesign since the Kiwanis Club operates with the help of volunteers & donations.

When I heard about the volunteer efforts, especially those who help out with the chocolate walk, I wondered if the site was used for prospective volunteers to get information about volunteering for the Lititz Chocolate Walk, but the site is strictly for visitors.

And on the subject of needing a redesign, the Kiwanis Club would be open to students doing a redesign for their official site!


Design Objectives

To review, the goals of this project are two-fold:  to redesign a site that has been poorly designed AND to make it responsive.  Redesigning for the Lititz Chocolate Walk is going to be a significant undertaking, but I have high hopes for it.

First & foremost to work on is going to be creating organization & hierarchy.  Right now everything is all over the place.  It's hard to tell what is important information & what may be ads or less important footer or subpage material, what is content & what is a link.  It's even hard to find the name of the event.  

An important part of organizing the site is going to be creating a clear navigation to guide visitors logically through the site's information.  Subpages will be easy to find & well organized.

Though my idea for the visual design is still in the abstract, there are a number of things I would definitely like to accomplish.  As this is an event website, visuals of the event tend to be very important.  Photographs from the actual event will be nearly impossible to get, but imagery of some sort will be very important in creating the atmosphere of the event & giving visitors a better idea of the event they may be attending.

I would like to in some way emphasize the quaintness of Lititz as well.  Lititz is one of my favorite local small towns.  It just has such a charm to it that I feel will be a draw for many out-of-town visitors.  As well, using some sort of Lititz-centric imagery could also emphasize the community aspect of this event.  It's hosted by the community, sponsored by the community, all to help those in need in the community.

Of course, this being a chocolate walk, chocolate will be a very important theme in the website's visual design.  I browsed through Smashing Magazine's Showcase of Sweet Chocolate Websites to see what exactly well-designed chocolate websites are doing.  I imagine brown will be a large proponent of the site's color scheme.  I haven't yet decided if I want to do a sort of large brown texture, or use brown very lightly.  I played around too with the idea of pulling some design from the Wilbur's Chocolate Company building.

To sum up the visual side of this design, I'm hoping to emphasize through the design chocolate, community, & the atmosphere of the event.

Persona

To help understand the needs & wants of potential site visitors, I created a persona in the form of Diana Bonomo, a non-profit project manager & avid traveler looking to attend the Lititz Chocolate Walk.