page 2

during the design of the lady bug page, i realised the subtlety of death in my design. despite this negative i wanted to pursue another page that could link indirectly with the first page..
hence i began research on images of death and found these three that i will use for second page. :

Review of web design

This term I have thoroughly enjoyed each class  and have learnt a range of techniques in using Macromedia and Adobe programs. There are many things I believe I could have improved on my website:

*introducing audio- this would have made a stronger connection with the viewers

*discovering more techniques in flash- with the time restrictions and work load   from other subjects (I know its not an excuse gianni but still.. :) ), I had not been able to fully explore this program thoroughly. But by knowing the basics i believe this course has given me the startup. 

*plan my time better 

*explore photoshop more as well- this would be great for my presentation on core study units as well

THANKS GIANNI!!!!

presentation web site

this is the link to my webpage:

http://people.arch.usyd.edu.au/~awan0850/index.html

enjoy!

Space Brief

Anything that is designed can form a space, with my design I wanted to link three visually different spaces to one idea: the casualty of space.  Space here is seen as the elements that effect us in which we become a casualty of. They include nature, families, war, etc.  I did not want to make my site seem all too melancholy, but instead an alternate transition from one to another. 

On the introduction page, I applied soft dark textures on the still-to-be blossomed flowers (using photoshop) to introduce the viewers my  intention of developing this site. Despite the dominated dark colours on this page, there is a subtle notion of life around with the flower attempting to reach the higher ends of the page. The light strokes of grey charcoal represents the natural forces (wind rain, storm) in which the flower confronts, just as it does in its real life. The text is placed on the far left side to develope the visual progression (from text to image) understanding of the relationship between the text and image. Each flower links to a new page which continues to develop the idea of the casualty space.

On the first page(top flower), I wanted to bring users to an interactive space but still keep  a linkage between the two sites. Hence I developed the 'life of a bug' page, where a few lady bugs roam around a leaf (notice connection with flower) as if trying to avoid being 'hit' by the viewer. On this page, when the viewer clicks on any of the lady bug it becomes flat with eyes popping out, while the bug's dark spots turns green when the mouse is over them. This makes the page more interactive and transports viewers to a more brighter space, but still relating to the idea of the the casualty of space.

As mentioned before I wanted to create the idea of space alternately, hence on the second page, the space becomes more dark and serious with photoshopped images of a lonely boy, a lost little girl and a child who wonders beyond. The connection here with the casualty of space is more stronger than the previous page. While the lonely boy is a casualty of the war , one girl is a casualty of being an orphan, as the other finds herself lost in the world she lives in. I used flash (alpha channels) to connect these three children together and applied thin strokes of diagonal lines that flashes across the page to represent the barrier between them and the good life we live in. I also wanted to confront viewers of the reality of the 'space' we share in this world, and how we lucky we are to not have been that casualty.

On the third page,  I again wanted to develop a brighter atmosphere, and I did this through using colour, layering of stairs and having thin lines (used in page 2) to push the man down the stairs. It is rather childish and even perhaps incomprehensible to some viewers, but the intension is again to create a brighter space with subtle reference to the idea of being a casualty.

Overall, I hope my idea of Space have been communicated through the viewer. I think it is not only about creating a space with the same elements throughout, because as shown with my design even completely different visual representations can have the same objective.

website progress

after several attempts to make my lady bugs 'bob', i decided to make them shiver a few times while moving across the page. i wanted to introduce some interactive feature to communicate with the user. hence i converted the lady bug into a button and applied two different layers - over and down. when the mouse moves over the bug, its pattern will turn green, while when the mouse hits down, the bug will will squished. i made these in photoshop.

over

hit:

text bobbing

http://exit261.com/dreadgrove

this is part of the design direction i am aiming at. Making the text 'bob' will (hopefully) make the space seem more alive.

i think it is also a good idea to place flash movie of my studio design for this semester in the background. it would  fully reflect the personal side of the site and make the site seem more interesting.

******folder structure: assets, pages*******

further ideas

i would also like to make the words seem floating on the page, and i can do this by using flash.

http://www.henrikknudsen.com/

this site is quite inspirational, its a personal of henrikk nudsen, showing his collection of work. the mouse roll over is interesting but kind of hard to follow, since the roll over fades slowly.