Rob Eagle's Archive

I have learned from every single project we have done. Each website has been completely different and called for different things. I feel like now I am much much closer to being confident in actually designing a website for myself or someone else. A part I see myself lacking in is organization. I am so used to doing print pieces and having little information to design for and now doing web design there is so much information to consider. The audio tutorial actually really helped me along with the inspiration pieces that were sent. I really noticed how tightly organized they all were and how strict they were to a grid system, even if it is not an obvious grid; everything matches and flows well. I tend to just get overwhelmed when I see a long list of info that I have to design and put on a page. Like this project for example, just reading the list of things the home page needed, I thought there was no way I could put all of it together. But that is a fun and challenging part about web design for me as well. Each little block of information, or menu bar, slider bar, whatever is like an individual piece that has to fit in and match with the overall page as a whole. So even though it is overwhelming for me to think of taking on designing all that information, once it starts to come together I am inspired and excited to add on to the page as a whole. Technically I still have much to learn and work on. It is really easy for me to break away from a grid system at all and just start designing something that i think works. I am learning though and  have learned an incredible amount over the semester. My opinion of interactive design has definitely changed. It still isn’t my most favorite thing to do but I do enjoy it and I want to continue improving on my designs.

TASKS (Everything specific to city & or zipcode)

MAP– User can drop pin on found skate spots, search & locate skate spots nearby, city specific

NEWS FEED– (Similar to Twitter Feed) User can post comments (status’), vids/pics, anything posted can be cross posted to Twitter/Facebook. Newsfeed can be filtered for all users, nation/world wide & filters for your city, state, your friends ect…

LOGIN– Option- user can use existing Twitter or Facebook logins for easy cross posting or make new Skatespot name.

VIDS/PICS- sections, user can search, view all, upload, and comment.

SPOT FEATURES– User can see; Name/description of spot. Comments, Pics, vids from the spot. Ratings, difficulty level, danger level (getting busted) &and User can comment on spot and add to ratings or danger/difficulty level.

Mark is a 15 year old living in Abilene, TX. He is new to skateboarding and doesn’t have any friends that skate. He can’t drive and he lives too far from the skate park so is looking for a place to skate close by his house. He downloads the skate spot app and is able to find a couple spots within walking distance. He checks them out and finds some pictures and videos and one place is said to be a pretty easy spot for beginners. He also notices some familiar faces of some kids he goes to school with in the pictures. So he is able to check out the spot and make some new skating buds. All apart of the skate spot community.

Tom is a 18 year old college freshman in Austin, TX. He is an avid skater but is new in town and does not know anyone. Skateparks really aren’t his scene so he is on the lookout for for underground spots. He’s having trouble finding other skaters on campus but he discovers the skate spot app and looks for spots that are more technical with a higher skill level. He notices these places are less popular, but are very nice and there is a regular group that posts for these certain spots. Tom decides to give the spots a shot and meets some locals skates and is able to jump right into the local skate community.

I got some great feedback and advice with my interviews and nothing negative surprisingly! I’m really glad this was part of the project because it really is helpful. Every person has a different point of view and it’s great to hear original ideas that I just haven’t thought of. I got a lot of the same general ideas and advice, which is good. My interviewers really liked the idea of it being a “skateboarders twitter” with a constantly updated news feed with pics, videos and comments. There was also a great idea of a “check in” feature, so you could see where your friends are. Another great idea I was given was a rating and difficulty level system for each skate spot. So a beginning skater doesn’t go somewhere where he doesn’t stand a chance and so a pro doesn’t go to a place full of 10 year olds. There was also a idea of a “danger level” so you could be alerted of cops in there area and how likely you were to be busted.
A problem I am thinking about with the app is this. I personally only really use Facebook and Twitter app, I don’t want something that is just a cheap imitation. My app would have to be fully functional with Facebook and Twitter. So, if you are posting something from my skate app you can specify to post to Twitter and Facebook as well. The same with photos and videos, so a photo you post will automatically go to a album on Facebook for example. It will in a way replace the Facebook and Twitter social media aspect for Skateboarders, and skateboarders only.
So the interviews were great and much help, now I don’t know what to do to put this all together!

I enjoyed this project most of all. I liked that I was able to choose the amount of content and design it for my self personally. Essentially my reasoning for taking this course was to understand the basis of web design so I could design something for myself. Now I feel like I could do it pretty successfully. I really liked the simplicity of my blog and thought I handled the hierarchy well. I wanted it as simple as possible so it would be easy to navigate and not clutter or distract the viewer. As far as that goes I think I was successful. I do think my Archive page could use some work as to how it is all arranged and how the viewer would find what they are searching for. I also need to consider a footer, how the page would end or how how you would go to another page if you wanted to skip through without going through the archive. I guess there are a lot of smaller details to be worked out before this could be a functional blog, but I am pretty happy over all with my design.

inspiration one

inspiration two

inspiration three

I feel like this project went much smoother for me than Project 1. I had a good direction and idea of what I wanted to do from the start and this time I actually had somewhat of an idea of what I was doing, not just blindly designing a web page. Although I am pretty pleased with how my web paged turned out I didn’t get to dedicate as much time to them as I would have liked.
My process definitely improved this time. I was organized with my files, which helped greatly and made everything go smoother and faster. I am sill doing all of my rendering in Illustrator and then transferring everything over to Photoshop, object by object, layer by layer. I have yet to see a real down side to this because I am able to accomplish everything in Illustrator I have wanted so far and I’m able to work more efficiently.
I did enjoy this project in the end. When I was starting out, similar to Project 1, I was really not feeling the whole web design deal, but once it started to come together and I had different pages laid out I started to get more excited about it. I am still not in love with web design, and feel like it just generally isn’t my cup of tea, but I am enjoying learning how, and getting the experience.
I’m looking forward to designing a web site for my own purposes, like portfolio, so I’m really able to do just what I want it, and do something that I could really put on the web.

I like this alot; good design, simple, easy navigating. http://www.doubledaves.com/

Not too exciting; http://order.papajohns.com/specialOffers.html

my Favorite; http://order.papajohns.com/specialOffers.html

What I’m not going for; http://www.littlecaesars.com/

Little too busy for me, but some nice aspects. http://www.cpk.com/

These are all starting to look the same; http://www.pizzainn.com/

This is kinda nice; http://www.flipperspizzeria.com/

LOL; http://www.pizzapro.com/menu.htm

http://www.lagourmetpizza.com/pizza/

http://www.gourmetpizza-company.com/