During this unit, it has challenged me in many ways. In a way of questioning my own style and how I want to portray myself. There are a lot of factors to look at when making a website; what to include, how its displayed, how the reader navigates the content, how it reflects my personal self and technical skills needed in the process. 

 

 

 

 

What to Include:

 

When I first thought of what I wanted to include in my website, I was unsure how too separate my work. It was first looked at by photography, film and graphic. However, I know my content would of been very uneven as I like to focus myself on more still images. Also, at the beginning of the 6 weeks I was very unsure in which category I wanted to go into. Now, after doing more workshops and activities out of university I have realised my strengths. I found it easier to see these strengths whilst working along others. I feel like these strengths are styling, directing and editing. Therefore, I decided to have a page of Projects which consist of all the work produced of University from this year and a few projects from Level 4 that I feel are my strongest. My other page is Personal Work, this is where you will find additional work that I have done outside of university such as shoots, CAD and working for other companies. In the about me section you find my link to my CV and LinkedIn. This is also available on every page in the footer, so its easily accessible. I made sure that all work I included all related back to me and my style, if i felt like I didn't learn from it i wouldn't include it. Such as my Global Fashion Cultures work from Level 4, I wasn't proud of what I produced therefore I didn't think it was worth including. 

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How its displayed:

 

Originally, on my first page I had a collage of images which include things from my day to day life including pictures of me. After speaking to a number of tutors, we all decided this was to confusing to include and leave them kind of images for social media like Instagram. From that, i learnt I needed my website to look professional and minimal. My first page includes nothing but my own logo. The logo is my initial created in a simple Futura font but retouched to make it individual to me. After a few seconds, a pop up explaining what the website is (Kiera Murray’s Portfolio) and to click it to enter. This gives a story as it’s slowly bringing the customer in. The first page is the ‘ About Me’ page where I explain who I am and what I am interested in. On the top right in the header, that is where you will find the menu, with the options of About me, Projects, Personal work and Reflections. On each page there is a grid of images that you click on to take to my different work. Furthermore, on each of my works page, the font is the same and so is the sizing. I try to make everything in line with my header and footer to create a sense of organisation within my work. When displaying my content, I like it big and minimal. To let the employer see my work and let my work do the talking. I find this has worked well as my feedback from friends and family have been all about my work. Its a good way to make sure no one misses anything. 

 

 

 

 

How the reader Navigates the content:

 

As mentioned, on the first page it has a pop up with a clear button that says ‘click to enter’, this helps the viewer to realise what they're going into. Once in the website, on the About me page there is a header and footer. On the header is the menu to access to all content of the website. My name on the top left takes them back to the home page. In the footer there are icons for people to view my Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn. These will be available on every page apart from my home page as I wanted that to have a minimal effect to catch the readers eye. Once the reader is on either; Projects, Personal Work or Reflections there is a square grid. On each square is a project that I have done, whether thats uni work, my own work or a specific reflection. They are all the same layout to make it easy to understand and navigate. Moving onto the pages with work content, every page will have a back button to get the main navigation pages. If a page has a link to a full project, it will either be a the top, bottom or both depending on how visible they are. I have created these mostly as a button. When you hover over the button it changes colour to make it clear that you can click on it. Thinking of how my website looked at the beginning to now, it has definitely come on within the navigation category. I have made sure of this by asking numerous of people to go through it and see what they think.

 

 

 

 

How it reflects my personal self:

 

Originally, I was having problems with how my website reflects me. As when I was going through it, I didn't feel satisfied and proud of the work I produced. Now, with the finished product I definitely feel like it reflects me with a bold and minimal look. I did this by making things big but not including too much and over lapping. I was sensible with my use of space and making sure I left blank space throughout. I feel like I have the same impact in my style, looking at my wardrobe I like to match things but always have a statement piece. With the physical work, it captures the array of things I enjoy to do with the focus of my styling, directing and photography as this is the majority of the content with highlights of other things. 

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Technical skills:

There has been a number of technical issues I have had to handle such as white backgrounds on images and pixelated projects. With most of my work I have had to rework it onto Indesign to let it publish online. Also, with images loading straight to website, some of the images have a white background and it covered some of the page, that took me to my photoshop skills where i had to get rid of the white background using the magic wand. Across most of my projects, I have used photoshop to edit my images, Illustrator to create my CV and mood boards and Indesign to create my Look books and presentations. I have also faced issues where the file is to big to load, to do this I made the file smaller using Acrobat. I used Wix to create my website and that itself has a few problems where it glitches and moves things around. Learning and making your way around it was definitely the most time consuming of it all.