This week we looked at the basics of web design. These were:

• User-Centric Design
• Simplicity
• Typography
• White-space
• Layout
• Colour
• Conventions

The ITB Website

www.itb.ie

Simplicity: This web site is simplified as to take our attention directly to the main points. It contains only two visual images which are the main Slide show in the centre of the page and the ITB logo. The designer here tried to limit on images as to portray the main point of the site, that it is an Institute web site and that it is needed for vital information weather as to imagery website.

Typography: In typography the designer of the site also did a very good job as he used only two types of font as using many would not look as nice. He used bold writing for the main parts of the web site like for the Course, ITB Information, Student services and other as to make it stand out and strike the reader’s eye as this is the most important information in the website. He also used smaller than the heading and the other information font as to show other information which might me needed but it is not as important as others. E.g News and Events.

White Balance: The White Balance in the ITB website is kept at good amounts. There is white space between everything in the web page, between the writing which is called Micro spacing, the photographs and the paragraphs which is called Macro spacing and even into the Logo writing. This makes the website look more simple and that it has a feeling of openness and style. Using White balance doesn’t always have to be in white colour and using white balance makes the site looking much nicer and easier to scan through and read.

Layout: The layout in the site is also very good in the website as there is Underlining under the main headings in the web site and also each information block is separated by a line making it stand out as one and noticeable. There is also the use of the Golden mean as the site has a fixed width and height. Every paragraph is equally measured and placed. The main navigation bar is kept at a constant place throughout the website making it’s layout simple and same for every link you enter in. Using fewer columns in the ITB site makes it much honest and it still feels simpler as we are communicating less information more clearly.

Convention: The use of Conventional Design is well used in the ITB website also as the navigation bar is clearly noticeable on the top of the website. Having used Conventional Design it is easier for readers to find out the part they need very quickly from only scanning through the website. Although the website hasn’t got many columns to look at they still are not too little which may cause confusion in the reader having to choose where to look at first but still the website has its good use of Conventional Design.

My opinion of the ITB website overall is that the design is well used, the web site is grate for its purpose with little mistakes it is still a very good website. It functions properly and looks good and simple to use.

This week we looked at signs in our lecture and in our lab we did some Photoshop exercises of good and evil.

This week we learned about the Gestalt Principles and we also had practice on some photos how to edit them with photo shop.

This week the class worked on making some Willow Sculptors outside our Collage.

This week we looked at the eight design principles:

Simplicity,Unity,Emphasis, Contrast, Balance, Space, Movement and Proportion. We also looked at the Golden mean and the Rule of Thirds.

We learned how to improve the appearance of a photograph,how to unite the backgrounds and foregrounds with the main part of an image, the way that patterns work and much more.

This week we looked at the Colour Wheel, Image Resolution,we found out that the bigger the resolution the better the quality of the image and vise versa.We also looked at Image type like Bitmap Gif and JPEG and we also looked at applications such as Photoshop.

In this weeks class we went on a field trip in conjunction with Digital Photography to the Botanic Gardens.

At the Botanic Gardens we looked at patterns and textures in nature.

We were then given 5 exercises: Contour Drawing, Blind Contuour Drawing, Negative Space, Pattern and Texture Thumbnail Sketches.

This week we looked at the colour spectrum and which colours fell into which category. We looked at primary and complimentary colours and how to construct these using the colour wheel. After that we then looked at the usage of complimentary, analogous, triad and split-complimentary colours.

In the first part of today we looked at some examples of digital media and grammar,e.g video and magazines. In the second part of today we did contoured drawing,blind drawing,line exercise in a negative space and tonal drawing.We scanned our pictures from week 1 and uploaded them into our blogs. It was fun.

This week we had an introduction to the Visual Language Module and we had a look at some of the other things which we are going to cover in the future.We were given and assignment in which we were asked to describe ourselves.We were also asked to draw three thumbnail drawings from which we had to pick one and develop it further.