DESCRIPTION
Design a website homepage using a grid.
PROCESS (Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
1. I chose to continue with a fictional character that I created one day when my then 3-year old daughter and I were on a car ride, and I needed something to occupy her mind to rescue her from car-boredom, so I made up a story about a tiny pumpkin named Jacky-Jack.
2. I have published a few of these stories here. Jacky-Jack started as a handful of amusing stories for me to share with my daughter, but then her friends and cousins got into it, and asked for more, so I started putting some of it down on paper. Eventually, I would like to create Jacky-Jack games and cartoons to go with the stories, and offer special downloads and merchandise to purchase, so that’s what this site is based on.
3. I knew that this being a kids’ site, it had to be simple by design, but that is so much easier said than done. Adobe Photoshop has proven to have such a steep learning curve that I spend hours only making a few adjustments, and I end up running out of time to get it looking quite like I really want it to, but it is getting closer now.
4. Going off the principle of “less is more”, I provided a graphic illustration at the top that tells exactly who Jacky-Jack is, and below that are five simple buttons to navigate to different services offered by the site. That’s it, simple, so when a visitor views the site, they will know exactly what it’s for, and what they can do there.
5. I spent hours creating the Jacky-Jack character, and although he’s still not quite looking like I want him to yet, he’s WAY closer than a week ago. It’s simply going to take more practice with PS to get it looking like I want it to. I also spent a little over an hour with the logos or icons that go over each link. While I generated the base for some of them from the custom shape builder, I also made some adjustments to make them more custom to what I want to communicate (kid-friendly, fun, and simple).
Sketch
CRITIQUE PROCESS
Facebook Critique:
I received some great advice via Facebook from Ralph Borcherds, who shared some ideas for how to improve my knowledge of Photoshop. I also received some valuable advice from Sarah Pence Sharp, and Brooke Ericson who suggested that I change it to Fall colors to match the theme better, great idea! Done.
Instructor Critique:
critique from our instructor, brother Stucki, who despite my discontent with my initial project, said that I actually wasn’t that far off, just needed to finish it up a bit, by adding more pumpkin like details such as a stem, some lines/ridges, and adding icons to the circle links, so I did that.
MESSAGE
It’s okay to be the smallest one out there, you can have a great life no matter who you are.
AUDIENCE
Children and parents of young children.
TOP THING LEARNED
Youtube is your friend. There are many people on Youtube who know how to use Photoshop, and can help give you ideas on how to improve your work. I think that considering this is a college course, we’re not expected to be given every little detail from the course to succeed, indeed I now feel that a large part of our success is going to come from thinking outside the box, and seeing how we can improve on the basic knowledge we’ve been given to start each project.
COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Split Complementary // Orange, Light Browns and yellows, and blues.
TITLE FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Cooper Black // Decorative/Serif
COPY FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Arial // Sans Serif
THUMBNAILS OF ANY ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE(S) USED IN THE PROJECT
Images are my own.
jacky-jack.com 