latest pages

Interesting placement of content box

It's good to find examples of the way one is leaning. Interesting placement of white box within grey background - not completely centered adds interest. Sizeable (styling) photo. I like the small text. Currently mine is too big.

Textured background

Portfolio page.
Back to the right and more subtle use of background texture, which is optional. A white background is pretty good too, I could go with it. Here are 2 possibilities with the cushion texture pushed right back.

left aligned

Before I head firmly to the right of the page (with text), thought I'd give the left a go. Currently working on the portfolio page layout, to clear the confusion I'd ended up with.
Have added the simple <<1>> 'scrolling' system to navigate through a collection. Now that's teasing!

nice

Here's a site I really like that I hadn't put on my site.
I need to re-design my pages, so need to go back to sites I like and mine their minimalism.

Home page and a portfolio page

This is a portfolio page. Current home page

Larger size images on home page

My home page is my portfolio menu page so images will be of a good size. The background texture is too dark here so have lightened which will remove the need for white boxes around text. Although the pink text looks OK at this size, if a little informal.

Home page

How's this for minimal? I like round-edged boxes, or oblongs, but they may refer to a particular era (60s-70s) and I'm over that.
Perhaps a thin frame around photos.
I'll have a photo from 4 different projects on the home page, to click on to view. Should there be project titles on this page, or descriptions?

Sub menus

Site mapping

These drawings continue my layout ideas. The first one was where I was at before consultation, the second one afterwards. Compartmentalising my work is challenging.
If it's by project then some miss out. If I define some as digital, how do I categorise the rest? Screen-printing will be separated into then and now, products and croquis. The 4th 'project' could be 'designs and drawings' or just 'designs' or 'pre-print' or 'black & white'. Digital is made up of croquis too.
I'll conclude these questions in the next day...

First look of layout

Here is a digital version of my first thoughts of the site's layout. The original pencil sketches are no longer virginal. Quite funny that my boxes, that will contain images, look like slides.
I don't know why I'm so keen to use grey. How will my work look alongside it? I will soon find out...

De-constructed digitalism

I'd heard of designer Martin Margiela creating weird and wonderful things and his website is suitably wacked out - technological/digital de-construction - in his use of early computer programming text/layout as well 'typewriter' courier font. The site is clever black and the white, very stylish and quirky minimalism. It makes the coloured photography even more dynamic and eye-catching... I like the simple scrolling >> symbols.
Where does this leave me? Greys, black and white and a couple of rich pastels...

Backgound too dark

Fromental's soft grey background, use of yellow and turquoise are charming and drew me in at first and yet the more I look the site, the less it works. It shows that background colour and the content of the site are intimately connected. Generally I like the geometric, and straight lines, but here it seems too hard-edged and boxed. I will try and include a human/organic touch to my site.

Typography

Struggling to find inspirational websites today. So I'll go back to ilovetypography. It's so refreshing. It's largely black and white, and quite busy with info but the layout, sizing of things and general feel is sooo sophisticated. The links at the top are very small and look great that way. Maybe it's because of the interesting fonts listed on the right, particularly Dessau and maybe that typographers just got 'it'. My friend Sarah Maxey, a graphic designer who does a lot of book design directed me there a while ago. I checked out her site too and found an extremely fantastically pared back site. A blurb 'about' and a slideshow of Sarah's work are all you'll find. The only clicking you do is to contact her. Very minimal indeed.

Mood board ideas

In these mood boards I'm trying to communicate potentially opposite ideas - modernism and the natural/organic. Softened geometry. What I want is clean, smart, not too stark minimalism. Warmth not cold, intelligent and playful. Just like one of my current influences, psychedelic minimalism, I'm attempting to juxtapose dissimilar styles...

References to my work could be in the small circles which would be bigger, or alternatively, within the grey, or elsewhere on the page.

They are portrait rather than landscape I realise now, so I will make the next ones fit for web.

This is a beautiful styling shot. I love the illustration technique, using the photographic and vector graphics. Collage and not collage. Moody, deep, subtle. I found Emma's portfolio and many other design portfolios on carbonmade.

The first blush of my site

I've built one, and it looks like this. The aesthetic is the juxtaposition of structured grey and wild pink. Ying and yang in a sense. And loving black and white as I do at the mo, they will come too.
Lost the 'boxes for everything' and am finally floating in the middle of the page and not filling the page up. Don't know about a cover page yet, to have or not to have? That is the question.

Neisha Crosland's graphic minimalism comes across in her website. Huge orange page with some trademark designs behind white text down the left hand side. Although, looking at all this minimalism has made me want some organic flourishes, some texture, some irregular and obviously human touches...
Can I have both? It seems to be a matter of being true to oneself but not alienating potential interest, or is that too compromising?

Sophisticated, calm, tantalising and simple. Header is minimal and classic. Titles of work are linked to sizeable photos that you just want to dive into and know more about. Pleasing to behold.

Psychedelic minimalism

Wow! There's a name for a style I particularly love. Two opposing movements meet and the results are "surprisingly fresh and purposefully paradoxical". The 'Less is more' motto is applied to everything but colour and texture. Layout is direct and sparse, typography is standard and straightforward. It is intentionally playful to add vibrant colours to an extremely reserved design approach and the results don't come across as anarchic or even accidental. "Because everything else is so purposefully structured, the vibrant colours themselves look purposeful and contained. The minimalism tames the psychedelia".

Mimimal and colourful

A beautiful minimal site dutchtextiledesign.com
with menu top left corner. Again a sea of dark grey, & what little text there is is neon pink. Easy to navigate and a pleasure to view the animation that unfolds - of crazy coloured circles. Each of the 3 designers have their own version of the animation, and portfolios when you click on their name.
One has quite a jerky journey through the different designs which is off-putting. Pink text sometimes creates optical problem, love it anyway!

Sophistication

Dark grey just screams sophistication, and there's layers of it here. Added to this are lovely vibrant pastel flourishes in moving graphics - the chair. It has it all, with restraint. The graphics invite you in and the information has been separated to good effect. They are ordered in importance by size and placement. Bigger and central, and smaller and out of the way, up top right.
And just top it off, large (and dark grey) patchwork type sits behind the action.

Websites in particular

Todd Oldham is designer with many strings to his bow. His website is minimal in gentle monchrome. I like it's soft, hand-done quality yet his signature/design sits firmly in the background. It's so different from anything I'd come up with - there's a challenge to be minimal with colour. Subtle but clear index by virtue of its size and nice touches with home icon and title stamp to the side.

Wednesday again

I jumped the gun posting today's post.

Here is the actual content. Have you seen design-milk.com? I came across it while researching wallpaper, a website spanning art, design and architecture - very inspiring!

The world is about to meet me and my textiles and I don't have to go anywhere. But I hope to...

Thinking about my own unique style while surrounded by all the talented textiles designers here at Massey. Trying to distill all my best bits for online life, without me there to lead you through it.

Here is a new wallpaper from Osborne & Little. It's not what wallpaper has ever been, may these post-modern trailblazers lead us into the future!

Day 2

Today, I'm thinking of my clients. Who are they? I have been interested predominantly in interior design - furnishings, wallpaper or carpet rather than the wearable - but maybe I should broaden my scope. Zambesi and Karen Walker could very well want my wares?!?

Some interior design companies that spring to mind are Mokum, Designer's Guild, Osborne & Little, Cloth and Hemptech. I would love to work for any of these folk.

My aim is to provide my target audience with post-modern indulgence rather than classical luxury fabrics, which may mean that my audience is hard to pin down. High end trendies? Commercial interiors, say cinemas or hotels?

I do love textile design conventions - spots, stripes and florals - and will always want to express myself using those motifs. I love the fact that the possibilities are endless. The imagined and abstract await discovery also.

Quirky or what?!

Here is a favourite designer of mine, Donna Wilson. Cuddly comfort in a crazy world.

Posting number 1. Let's start with the goals of an online portfolio:

To promote myself and my work. To create interest in what I do, my skills, my style/s, and to join and be part of the web design community.

The audience I'm aiming for is made up of potential employers, clients, fellow designers and also friends and family.

The content must be made up of my best work. It must be useful to those viewing it. If I imagine where and/or for whom I want to work, what do these people want and need to see? Material can include finished work, work in progress, workbook content, sketches and collaborative work.
Content should be well-organised, contextualised and gorgeously presented and linked with common threads!

This online presence should communicate an unified brand; my distinctive identity; through consistent style/s, design elements and a cohesive body of work.

The scope of this project considers the WHY?, FOR WHOM? and WITH WHAT?
A site works best when it is simple, tight, clean and functional, showing one's best work really, really well. Less is more, quality not quantity.

The site's requirement's in order to fulfill the above-mentioned goals are

• strong content
• information about the work
• information about me and the big picture (include a downloadable CV pdf)
• current contact details (email and phone number)

plus

• grabs visitors' attention straight away
• easy to navigate
• continuity of presentation
• clear and coherent
• unique
• stands alone
• kept current and fresh-faced