Website Evaluation and Analysis
In this assignment I was tasked with creating a website with a minimum of four pages inspired by freelancers and influencers within the media industry. Upon researching specific websites I found it was important to research specific people that are successful within the industry. This was to ensure the websites I would be researching were clearly very successful in terms of gaining clients but also the of the most professional it can be. This form of research will also be useful when researching freelance professionals to interview. When doing my research, I looked predominantly on the design of the websites, as If it is a creative service you are offering having a great looking website proves your level of creative ability is right for the client. It also ensures the sense of security the client will trust in you. Throughout looking at the design I looked at everything, from animations, fonts, colours, logo, pictures etc. A great example of one website I looked at was, digital designer and developer, Andrew McCarthy. He uses a continuous scrolling page as his home screen with his name, job title, contact email, a link to his recent work, where he is based, his interests and a link to his facebook profile. He then has a menu at the top with a link to view all of his recent. Although this website is very clean and simple, it is very direct and presents the quality of the work in its best format. The idea of keeping the design of the website minimal and almost scandinavian to present the work is something I am going to use for my website at is directs the client to exactly what they want to see. McCarthy also uses a cmyk colour palette which enhances the professionalism which is presented throughout the website ensuring to the client he knows what he's doing. This aspect is also something I am going to try and present in my own website. Here are a few images of McCarthy’s website.
Before creating my website I chose to sketch out drawings of what I wanted each page to look like so when designing each page on the computer I had a general idea of what I wanted my website to look like, along with notes to guide me. Once I had designed where each component of the website was going to go, including my logo, social links, menus and media, I decided to choose a colour pallet for the whole of my website and me as a brand. My name being, Henry Green, the colour green was an obvious choice. However I did not like the connotations of the colour, so I decided to create my logo with the colours lime green and black. And for the overall colour of my website a subtle light grey, as black and lime green would be to loud and old fashioned. I also found the light grey colour is used alot when researching other freelancers so I know this colour works, looks and is used by professionals. However I still wanted to keep to the brand colours throughout my website, so I decided to subtly insert the lime green and black colours across all of my website. I decided to place the lime green colour predominantly when the user hovers over the menu but and on the menu. On my menu page I have created five pages, home, photographs, films, education and contact. In the menu page I wanted to keep to the brand identity of my website so I created it so that when the user hovers overs a page two bars appear on top and below the page to indicate the user can click on the page. However I have created it so that the middle page, films, bars are lime green so that the overall menu creates the black and green logo. This logo is also used as a favicon in the tab section and, on the homepage on my logo. On the master page In the same light grey colour, I have added the menu button, my copyright protection, location for seo purposes, and social links including, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. On my education page I have used full width sliders to showcase all of my work with a description. On my contact page I have used a stylised contact button which when the user hovers overs it changes to lime green. The button is my social tag (@henrymgreen), however it links to my email. So it doubles up in being able to contact me. Overall I feel I have been successful in creating a professional looking website. I feel I have been successful because I have been able to take inspiration from the key components from professional freelancers and embody them throughout my website to create a clean but effective professional looking website. Here are a few screenshots of my website below.