Elliott Design.

This is a running blog for the design and production for my projects in the Web Design course.
June 5

Blog Complete

Well i finally have come to a point where i am happy with my blog theme. There’s nothing more that i would like to add to it and i’m very pleased with how it turned out.

I continued the high contrast theme of dots and included some dots in the border to the content as well as in a gradient mounted at the top of the page. I moved around some of the date and search fields, and have made all the fonts and colours relate to each other. I also added a hover effect on the dates which inverts the colours.

I spent most of my time playing around with all the background divs to have them working with the effect i created and that is what i am most proud of. This is also why i chose to make my content so narrow in the centre of the screen, so that the parallax effect on the background would be more effective.

All up i am very happy with how the blog turned out and it was a lot easier than i first thought. I am now signing off… forever… maybe…

June 1

Final Website

And here is the link to my final website…

http://stonefest.andrewelliott.com.au

June 1

Blog Background

Well i started to play with the background for the blog and i came across a tutorial for creating a parallax effect when the window is resized. It uses the body and two divs wrapped around the content all with different transparent backgrounds that are fixed with different percentages of the window size. As the window size is adjusted, the percentage that the background covers also adjusts. When the three layers do this at a different rate, it appears that the foreground is moving faster than the background, thus creating a parallax effect.

To see what I’m talking about just drag the sides of the browser window in and out to make the window narrower. As you move back and forth you will notice the different speeds of movement in the background. It is a very subtle effect that not many people will pick up on, but i thought i would challenge myself.

I’m now going to start playing around with the other features to make some more adjustments to blend the theme with the pattern in my background.

May 31
Here is my final decision to make regarding the web site. I have to choose which background colour to use out of the choices i have presented in the attached image. i originally had the black but it was a bit too straight forward and not quite lively enough to match the vibrant organic themes from the current music festival websites. So i developed this list of bright colours to see them side by side. I think the red is too contrasting from the the green (being opposite on the colour wheel) and it creates a dark blend at the join of the green and red colours. The orange is a bit too light and drowns out the links in brown. The pink is interesting and similar to some other music festival sites (Splendor in the grass) but is a bit too abstract. I think the blue works best. it is a nice shade to match the green but also doubles as a sky behind the grass as the ground. So that is pretty much the thinking behind my decision and this officially marks the end of the website project for me. I’ll see you during my blog theme soon. Bye (for now)

Here is my final decision to make regarding the web site. I have to choose which background colour to use out of the choices i have presented in the attached image. i originally had the black but it was a bit too straight forward and not quite lively enough to match the vibrant organic themes from the current music festival websites. So i developed this list of bright colours to see them side by side.

I think the red is too contrasting from the the green (being opposite on the colour wheel) and it creates a dark blend at the join of the green and red colours.

The orange is a bit too light and drowns out the links in brown.

The pink is interesting and similar to some other music festival sites (Splendor in the grass) but is a bit too abstract.

I think the blue works best. it is a nice shade to match the green but also doubles as a sky behind the grass as the ground.

So that is pretty much the thinking behind my decision and this officially marks the end of the website project for me. I’ll see you during my blog theme soon.

Bye (for now)

May 30

Almost done

Well i have just finished including all my necessary requirements. Have gone through the list and ticked them all off today.

I am now going to go through my colours and fonts to get it looking just right. I think i might change the background colour from the current black. I’ll do a few mock ups to see which looks the best.

May 29

Final Touches

Most of my website is now done and i have been adding the final touches to it over the last few days. after talking to Geoff he has suggested changing my html markup from using a table layout to a simple set of floating columns. I have just finished implementing that change throughout the whole site and my next step now is to include my form entry. I have been thinking of adding a contact form but that would conflict with my email link that i already have (which is a requirement). So i think i might put in a feedback form.

May 11

YouTube videos

I have now inserted all my YouTube videos into my web page. I added one for every artist (or at least every artist with a video on YouTube). I was suprised at how easy it was to do and how much customisation there was.

I have also adjusted the font slightly (although I’ll be changing that some more) and created columns for my text. The columns really make the text more approachable as each line doesn’t span the whole width of the page.

Finally starting to look semi-finished now which is good.

May 7

A long time off

Well it’s been a while since my last blog because it’s been a while since I touched my website. I finally started tweaking it today and managed to enforce Geoff’s idea of creating a tileable background in order to keep my png transparency without the 1.6mb file size.

I’m still yet to get it perfect but I’m almost there. Then all I have to do is add my map, video, images, and search box.

Til next time.

April 5
I have finished writing up all my html and now i’m starting to write some css to make it look like my design drafts. This image is my draft of how i want the site to generally look like. I’m thinking about increasing the width from 700 to 900 (i’ve got to stop judging the appearance on my own computer because i only have a resolution of 1024 x 768) and adding the links either across the top or down the left side. I think the grass is perfect for the theme i am trying to portray and especially the title hidden within it. I might try to incorporate some wooden elements to help the theme as well.

I have finished writing up all my html and now i’m starting to write some css to make it look like my design drafts.

This image is my draft of how i want the site to generally look like. I’m thinking about increasing the width from 700 to 900 (i’ve got to stop judging the appearance on my own computer because i only have a resolution of 1024 x 768) and adding the links either across the top or down the left side.

I think the grass is perfect for the theme i am trying to portray and especially the title hidden within it. I might try to incorporate some wooden elements to help the theme as well.

April 4

Html going good

Well i started writing up my html only a couple of hours ago and i’m almost done. I have found it a lot easier than i imagined. The textbook has been a great help, as everything i’ve needed help with has been in that book.

Once i’m done this i might finish off my design drafts so i can start styling with css. I have found a really cool grass brush in photoshop which i think would work great with the theme i want to do.

I’ll post some photos later.