Evan Marks's Archive

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Creating websites is hard work. Or at least using Photoshop is. I have never been as mentally and physically drained as I have after I’ve spent time working on websites in Photoshop. I know why this is: I’m still learning. But the learning process is grueling. The results however, are fun and rewarding, and I’m excited to eventually know Photoshop like the back of my hand. Speaking of results, I was fairly happy with my final comps for this project. I wanted the design, layout and color scheme to look just as appetizing as the food itself, and I feel like a reached a good spot with that. The browns and yellows echo the colors of the burgers, while the blues bring in the ‘beach vibe’ that I was trying to capture (along with some help from the photos). My font choice (a nice, soft slab sans-serif called ‘Cubano’) provided a great ‘beach-y’ feel while also being fun and playful, perfect for a burger hut. I also kept the corners of all boxes round, to match the type-choice as well as keep an overall aesthetic or soft, round, and delicious.

Whenever I found restaurant websites that I liked, they always had one thing in common: they were very simple. When I go to a website looking for food, there are only really two things I care about: what kind of food do you have, and how can I get that food. Everything else is really just filler or the Restaurant tooting it’s own horn (who really cares about the ‘about me’ page?). I wanted to capture that simplicity in my own website, but I also wanted to provide an additional reason for the website to exist. My answer was to have the website serve doubly as a menu for the restaurant, but also a blog/photo log of the local San Diego surfer scene. This gave importance to the rest of the website, as well as made the website that much more interesting (burgers AND surf?? Yes please.)

I also really focused on keeping my website on a grid structure, especially on the menu page, which really helped me keep the site simple and organized with really little to no worrying about what will fit and what wouldn’t. Because I was coming up with all the information on the site, it was especially easy to fill in blank spots, as well as take out info when I needed too.

I’ve only got one at the moment, working on a second.

JK

Scenario #1 –

Name: Nathan

Age: 25

Occupation: DJ

Nathan was born and raised on the streets of East L.A. It was there that he developed his love for music, the arts, and good food. Nathan is currently working his way up the ranks in Southern California’s underground DJ scene, hoping to one day hit the big time. His profession demands his absolute dedication, so Nathan rarely ever finds time to sit down and enjoy a good meal. Nathan was happy to find that [Company name] was fast and easy and, most importantly, delicious. Being the internet savy DJ that he is, Nathan plans to check out the [Company name] website as soon as he can, hoping that he can order food for pick up, or, even better, delivery.

  Scenario #2 –

  Name: Sebastion

Age: 31

Occupation: German Tourist

Sebastion has been to America three times, but this is the first time he’s ever visited California. Ever since he was a kid, Sebastion’s first thoughts about America were the famous movie stars of Hollywood, the sunny weather, and of course, the beaches of Southern California. Determined to live out his vacation to the fullest, Sebastion Googled restaurants that would give him the most authentic Beach-scene food that the city of L.A. had to offer. His search led him to [Company name]’s website, and he’s planning on heading there soon.

This project was a very large test of patience for me, due to having to design layouts in Photoshop. After spending nearly all of last semester learning and designing in Illustrator, it was somewhat jarring to have to suddenly learn all those basic skills in a new program. Despite the learning curve however, now that I know what can be accomplished with the program, Photoshop is much less daunting than it had been previously. Because I was now working in pixels instead of vectors, it was much easier to perfectly align objects pixel to pixel. It was also a relief to know that the dimensions I was working in were exact, and at any moment I could view my website exactly as it would be viewed online. Apart from Photoshop, just designing for the web instead of print was a lot more liberating. Effects such as drop-shadow and embossing, which were hard to pull off on a printed piece, were simple in a purely digital spread. It was much easier to make links and icons more dynamic and visually interesting.

When it came to the design of the website itself, I was immediately drawn to a simple, basic layout that was very easy to understand. Now that I look at my design, I see it as perhaps being too sparse, and lacking in information. But I still agree with my initial idea of simplicity. I supplemented my muted background colors (grey and white) with small red icons and blue links. I didn’t want to overuse color or effects, and I think in that aspect I was successful. Looking back at this project, a part of me wishes I had gone with a more visual approach to the site. In my own experience of surfing the ‘net, I know that rarely is it the text of a page that keeps me hooked, but almost always the visuals. In future projects, I might want to veer towards a more visual language, though I would be sure to not over-emphasize a visual aspect, when the text (especially for an article based website) remains the essential piece.

Sincerely,

Evan Marks

https://webfiles.acu.edu/users/edm10a/web/website1/