Interaction Design

Smoothing out the wrinkles is putting it a little too delicately.

I’ll try getting it working as soon as I can. I just hope this won’t end up like most personal projects and take a back seat.

Joseph Turner Design

Still not finished.

But isn’t that the way it always is?

See what I have so far….Style Guide

I wasted a lot of time in this stage.

After several hours going in the wrong direction, I started my layout over. A very frustrating time. But I learned how valuable using a modernist’s grid can be.

Still not the final product, but getting there.

Undecided…

I still haven’t decided how most of the images should be treated within the site. I do know that I will take all of the photos myself. I think tight cropping on the home and outer pages will create some intrigue that will entice the user to continue through to either the inner pages or the blog and hopefully contact me about something.

I know that I want some hover and click interactivity. Maybe a lowered opacity on hover or something.

It’s good to see some gray.

Something I noticed when I did this is the repetition of the two columns on the top and the bottom. It really helps to see how much space certain things should take up compared to others.

This is not to scale

My first idea ended up being my favorite.

At first I went with a much later concept. But it fell apart when I got into photoshop.

The concept that started it all.

Web safe fonts rule!

Ok, so they don’t. But I am starting to like Trebuchet… I basically only use Trebuchet in different sizes, weights and styles throughout the website. My logo was created using Caecilia, and Trebuchet best matches those curves and angles. I haven’t really styled the blog type yet, and that might change some things. I think for blockquotes I might use a serif like Georgia, but I’m not sure what I want yet.

Keep it simple

As in everything design simple is usually better. I don’t want to distract the user with useless links, gadgets and gizmos galore. If it’s on the page I want it to be pertinent to the content of that page.

I have designed 3 different layouts so far. I still haven’t figured out the basic page structure for the blog yet, but I was able to simplify it so that the outer pages share the same layout as the home page.

There are a lot of great portfolio sites out there.

I noticed that those that kept me longer were those that were more interactive. There’s something about information when there is some sort of transition between pages that makes you want to stay, at least to see the transition just one more time.

Another thing I noticed is that all of the layouts are very simple. I think this allows the portfolio to shine more than the website itself.

Put these things together with an intuitive navigation that’s easy to use and I think you’ve got a decent site.

I’m glad I’m not the only one trying to figure out his identity. I like the initials, so I wanted to incorporate those same letterforms into the main logo-type. Let me know how I did.

Initials...

Did I say that I love slab serifs!