Website Design

09.10.15

I researched effective website designs and found which ones would appeal to the audience I'm targeting. One design I found was for the Rhythm and Vines website.

http://www.rhythmandvines.co.nz/

The design is really clean and effective and proven to work. I also found it far easier to navigate because of its simplicity.

This helped me a lot as I'm unfamiliar with how to design websites effectively. It advanced my project because I was able to better visualize how my site could look and I could take notes on things that were effective and those that weren't.

Design Collateral

08.10.15

I created some promotional material around the website to reach the target audience and gain interest.

Experimenting with different methods of promotion helped me to realize which would be most effective. It also helped me to view how the proposal would be interacted and engaged with by getting a perspective from someone within the age bracket telling me what methods they would identify with. As well as what promotions would work I also considered the location of them and how to best reach people by using public and private spaces.

Logo Design

02.10.15

I began to redesign the logo after deciding that my website would be called 'Loop'. I wanted the logo to reflect the idea of circles of friends crossing over to create new groups but it also had to be dynamic and appeal to the target audience.

After various hand drawn thumbnails I started to design some logo options digitally. When showing the designs to my peers I was reassured by their feedback that the logo I preferred was the strongest out of them. This helped me to advance the project as it became easier to form a visual style once I had decided on the base logo design.

         

Prototyping - Test - Iterate

25-26.9.2015

I presented some visual designs of my proposal for testing and critique from peers.

The critique I received was valuable as it helped me to gain some more outside perspective on how the initial stages of my execution were looking. My project was advanced because the critique helped me to see that the design was lacking an overall visual style and that I had started to get caught up in the finer details rather than focusing on the general look I wanted to achieve.

Journey Map - Big Idea

18.9.2015

Class time was spent reviewing the feedback gained from the different tests that I'd run with other students and creating a journey map before, during and after my proposal based around what the target audience would be doing, thinking and feeling. I then tried to clarify the big idea that I was addressing.

After discussing this with tutors and peers I was reassured that my project was going in the right direction and that the general idea I had was promising, the discussions advanced my project because it helped me to see that my big idea needed to be resolved further to help me determine what exactly I want to achieve to begin creating something more definitive.

Prototype Test

17.9.2015

During the week leading up to class we had prepared materials that we needed to run more tests. After last weeks feedback I had spent my time trying to create something that wasn't in the form of a website but still tested how audiences would respond to the idea of cheaper event tickets being offered.

I arranged an area for students to physically sign up for events that were offering various deals. My goal was to test how the price of an event as well as how many people were already attending would affect their decisions and the way they interacted with both the area and each other.

I found that regardless of cost or savings offered, people were more concerned with how many friends would be attending each event and in particular who they were. This advanced my project because I could shift from offering discounts and cheap deals, to promoting events around the social benefits they bring

Exchange

11.9.2015

We had another exchange moment with students from other disciplines. I shared my ideas with Rata who is studying textiles and Yoshi from fashion design.

It was interesting seeing how their projects had progressed from our last exchange and although we were undertaking the idea of wellbeing in different ways I found it useful to present and get feedback from students who were unfamiliar with the VCD briefs.

When presenting them with my current ideas they had questions around how I planned to execute them. We also discussed what would give the audience incentive to take part. By having students who were less familiar with the VCD brief it helped to advance my project because they were able to critique it without existing knowledge of what I was trying to achieve, having an objective point of view gave me insights into what audiences would be interested in or want out of various social events around the way that they were organised or promoted.