Last month I was asked to design a logo for buyequip, a company that recycles and sells used IT equipment. Initially I was given very free reign to come up with concepts, but in the end Buyequip decided on their own specific idea which I developed. Here are some of my original concepts -
These were my very first ideas, incorporating IT and recycling in a pretty obvious way.
These are my final mockups, featuring a style I intend to apply to this site. The pages featured are the landing page, portfolio page and about page. This style will be applied throughout the site however, from these high leel pages down to comment forms.
This design style is intended to reflect my personality and professional design aesthetic as well as function as a usable and aesthetically pleasing website.
This is a site that I love for its visual design but hate for its strange decisions about navigation. Everything is on one page. This makes it extremely difficult to use the URL of the site to link to specific information, as a user who wants to link to say, the illustration section, has to give out his main url and instruct the recipient to scroll or navigate down. This is really the only major issue I have with this site, but unfortunately, it is a large one. Despite this navigation style, the sections are separated well by whitespace and an interesting design style which makes use of { brackets to join together related content. This typography focus and elegant grouping creates the impression that the site owner is an effective graphic designer as well as web designer.
Visually, however, this site is very effective. It is made extremely clear what the owner of the site does, thanks to a handy blurb fore grounded at the top of the page. However it is somewhat unclear what the mysterious ‘ft’ stands for, as the ‘ft’ image on the top left links to the contact section. This is a somewhat odd decision but it does not at all diminish the impact of the site. The use of a dark background with bright colours on emphasised text draws the user’s attention to the right areas, and the use of paper textures and engaging typography creates a look and feel that screams ‘graphic designer.’
The designer’s work is also front and centre, with a display of works on rotation as high as possible, right under his blurb. The user can click this showcase to move to the next image, which is quite effective. An option to go to the portfolio section of the site and view each image at full size would have been a nice addition, however.
This website is a portfolio and has no blog, so up to date content is not as large of an issue as it could be. However, some of the portfolio works are dated, giving the impression of frequent updates.
As an aside, I love the creative design this designer has used for his email form. It’s a postcard! This is an obvious choice but one I’ve never seen before, and it works extremely well, extending the post metaphor of email while being somewhat playful and cheeky.
This is another portfolio/blog site I really like. This site is really about explaining who the designer is and what he does, while keeping his works and blog separate. Its key focus seems to be clarity of information, with descriptions of what services he offers and contact information on the landing page. The use of a personal photograph is oddly underused in personal portfolio design but it has been used here to good effect, as it shows that Kinetic Kreations is one person, and reveals more about the person behind the designs.
The use of a monochrome colours scheme with just one highlight colour, pink, is very effective here. It points the user to the key spots that the designer wants them to read.
When the page is first loaded a little animation is played before materialising into his logo. This works well and is not distracting because it only plays once and does not remain as a blinking nuisance while the user browses the site.
Navigation is perhaps not ideal. There is a consistent nav on the top of the site while links to the various sections of the site. But it is not initially seen because of its small size, lading the user to think that that larger tab navigation attached to the main content div is the main form of navigation for the site, which is not the case, as these large nav links only related to subpages of the main categories. This is not entirely problematic as the key elements the designer wants to display are linked in the large nav on the landing page, but it does take some searching around to find his normal blog link, for instance.
The personality and visual impact of this site, with its large photo background and sleek, modern type and embellishments is extremely effective and eye catching, and overall this is an excellent example of an extremely professional portfolio.
My design process is messy and incomprehensible a lot of the time, but to me it makes sense, and hopefully that’s what counts. Below are some rough sketches I did when designing the upcoming look for this blog. They’re only layout,but believe me, the look was in my head, if not on paper!
Also included is a typography test I looked at when trying to decide what font to use. This is what I narrowed it down to after looking at my whole collection of fonts.
Stay tuned tomorrow for when my design mockups go up, along with my blog reviews!
Straight off the bat I have to say I really love this design. It has a lot of personality and has a great layout, with division of content/navigation occurring thanks to bold contrast of colour. First I’d like to talk about the style, though. It’s decidedly retro, but with a strange mix of influences – the rocketship that takes prominence on the front page smacks of pulpy, retro sci fi, while the left margin is occupied by what looks something like a damask pattern. Then on the upper right of the main content block there are rainbow like bars of colour that are reflective more of current design trends than anything else. Yet somehow this all works together to great a cohesive look thanks to the consistent texture and colour scheme. The little doodles on the page really get across that the owner of this site is a designer, for instance the underlines below blog post headings and little arrows on various links.
It’s very clear what Jeff does- web design. He’s taken the tactic of a little blurb under his name that is so commonly and effectively employed.
The designer has made good use of social networking, with his flickr taking great prominence in the main content section before even his blog entries, and a twitter feed on the right. Interestingly, blog posts take prominence over his portfolio, presumably because he feels the site’s design will speak for itself as a portfolio. This is something of a pitfall because his work is not front and centre, but it is featured on the front page at least.
One major problem with this site is the lack of activity! The most recent blog post, prominently displayed at the top of the landing page, is dated March 2009. The current Twitter feed on the sidebar is not enough to excuse that!
Cassie Selin | I like to design, draw and code © 2009
