Project 3 Preliminary

[gr8ful1]

Here are my roughs for this project! I'm still messing with fonts, and not sure about my color schemes. I went in two different directions, in my first design I tried to make it colorful without making it look like a rainbow threw up all over it. And since I haven't tried to make a toned down minimal site yet, I tried it for my second design

Thanks for feedback!

AND.....I am a CIT major, not GRC, so I have no student art!! If anyone would like to donate anything for my student art gallery, I'd much appreciate it!! Not sure if you can leave stuff in comments here or not, if not can email it to me kirsten.gr8ful2@yahoo.com with your name and anything else you'd like it to say! Thanks!!

[lornrocks]

I think your second design is stronger than the first one. It's more timeless. I like the color schemes and tiny hints of rainbow (instead of full-on rainbow) and it seems to be much easier to read and navigate, especially for people with accessibility issues. I like the texture on the background of the navigation bar on the second design as well. I think to make it stronger you should maybe try to play around with fonts more and put some imagery in some of your inside pages to add more interest and variety between pages.

[kaycee_weddell]

Personally I am leaning towards your second design. It's simple but also has a nice organized look and feel to it. I like the gray and purple used together. The imagery is nice, however maybe consider making the images a little bigger or maybe try a slideshow or lightbox! Overall great start!

[Joe_Morales]

I also think your second design is stronger and allows for easier navigation your first rough has me focusing on the rainbow bars on the top and bottom. Everything is well organized and has a more controlled color scheme which is nice. I think with a little modifications to your typography and played a little bit with color you can have a strong design. this site can help with designing with color and even shows you examples of what the colors would look like on a site or together http://paletton.com/#uid=1000u0kllllaFw0g0qFqFg0w0aF. Hope this helps a bit cant wait to see the final design!

[rmiyashiro]

I love the rainbow bars at the top of your first design. This layout is the one I prefer. The background is cool and the effect you have on the text works well with the background. My only concern is the TMCC logo. I think we have to keep the logo colors http://www.tmcc.edu/marketing-communica ... and-logos/

[dbranby]

Nice start! I prefer your second design version as a cleaner, more corporate presentation of the TMCC GRC program. Good luck with your build-out -- and if I had any student work to share, I'd be happy to share it!

[dnorwood]

You have two pretty good designs here. I like your first design better tho since this was supposed to be a fun project. It is bright and eye-catching. Maybe a little too much, but that is actually an easy fix...take all of that white type and make it a dark grey, say an 80% or 90% black. That will tone down some of the bright and also make it very readable. If it doesn't seem to stand out well against your grey boxes, make them either a lighter grey or that turquoise you have going on there. Do the same with the inner page of that design, also change the type in the blue bars to that same dark grey...the red on the blue is hard to read. This design, while really good, needs contrast (the dark type against the light) to make it stand out in a really good way.
The second design has good layout and the use of the picture bar is good by showing what the students do. The little rainbow circles between the links don't work with this tho. Since this is a more traditional style, if you want to put something in to separate the links it should be something more traditional and fit in with the same color scheme. Actually a small, thin rectangle the same purple as your 'Graphic Communications' bar would work well.
Good luck,
Denise

[ravens.way]

Both of your designs are well done. I like the rough 2 the best. In your rough 1 the background graphic makes it hard to see some of the text that is near it. Your font is a good size.You have used space well on your designs. Your colors work well together on both of your designs.

[raoki]

Yeah I think the second one is better because it looks clean and easy on eyes.
I'd change the rainbow-colored balls to something else such as just simple lines and the color should be related any color on the page...maybe purple?

Also, I just contributed a post to share our student works for the gallery page so hope it'll be helpful

[Instructor]

Cool! I can see your design skills growing between this project and your first. Great to see.

I like the stronger visual impression of your first design, even if it does need a bit of cleanup. I especially like the dual navigations as framing devices. Both are large and easy to use and the semi transparent black background works well. The hue bars are also a strong visual element and help with framing. They also establish your navigational structure. Your navigation typography also works really well. The brushed metal immediately draws the eye to the center of the document and makes whatever information you have there dominant. The layout is clean and has a good presentational space for it's content.

Where I'm not sold is the middle layout. I don't think you need the transparent black boxes behind your bodycopy. Ditch the red too it vanishes into your metal gray. I'd darken your brushed metal in Photoshop and use a white or light color for your type. Put a drop shadow or a black outer glow behind your bodycopy type and your good to go. I'd also pull out on of your script stypefaces you use in the middle and just stick with one for the headline and logo. I slightly prefer your headline script type. Also, watch your top margin, your logo's awfully close to your top navigation.

Nice work.