creating my website

 Creating my website

Wix website

Target audience

As my website will be a portfolio website, the target audience will mainly be for people looking to recruit me for projects from looking at a display of my work. My target audience would be ages roughly 18-25 who are also interested in media and film work, this can then help build a following if i connect social medias to my website and thus gain a popularity which can furthermore help with applications for jobs or universities in the future

Colour scheme:

Every site has a colour scheme, the primary colours it uses for its main areas. The repeated use of these colours will affect the user’s mind and mood, typically subconsciously, so its important to choose them well.

From my research I have decided that for my colour scheme I would like the background colours to be black and white as I think this gives the impression that the creator is professional and organised. However to avoid my website from becoming dull with the main colours being black and white I will make sure that their are enough images and video clips to balance out the black and white as well as using brighter, more vibrant colours in smaller areas of my website.

Primary colours (shades) within website: 

Black Promotes: power, edginess, sophistication

White Promotes: cleanliness, virtue, simplicity

Secondary colours within website:

Orange Promotes: friendliness, energy, uniqueness

Yellow Promotes: happiness, enthusiasm, antiquity (darker shades)

Fonts:

For my chosen font, I'm not looking for anything that's too flashy or stands out that much as i want it to fit in with the rest of my website, if the font looks odd on a website, in my experience it can often be the deciding factor on whether the viewer selects that person to work with or hire.

Some fonts I like are:

Helvetica

Calibri

Futura

Website design

For my website I decided that instead of having three pages (Home>about>contacts)

I decided that id have two pages as instead of having a separate page for contacts, i would add it onto the end of the second page as to me that made more sense. 

Here is a wireframe for my website that I plan on creating, I plan on creating a portfolio website to upload my work for future job/ university opportunities, however for now I will have to leave some areas of my website blank such as the show reel as I have not yet created one. As my skills develop and complete my projects in the future I will upload them onto this portfolio website as evidence to show my skill level and creative knowledge to possible future employers.

The process

Here I have taken screenshots of a before and after on each section of my website to show the process so far.

Step one

I found a template under 'filmography portfolios' I liked on Wix to use as a base for my website so i wouldn't have to start completely from scratch and could keep the parts that I liked.

Step two

Next I started changing the layout of the original template to better fit my design, so I cut out the 'lights out' project that was shown on the template as I only wanted two pages on my website as I don't have enough work to have a whole individual page dedicated to previous work. As I gain more experience through projects I will include a page to present other work but for now I thought it was better to cut it out.

Step three

I started altering the colour scheme of my website, as previously stated I liked the idea of having a majority of a darker background however in the template i used i liked the use of the pastel pink to highlight areas of the website so I kept that element in my website.

Step four

I altered each page individually, the first page i wanted to be the show reel page, where that is the main feature of that page and then the rest of the websites other pages provide more information. As I don't have a show reel yet i left that insertion blank, this shows that when I do have one that's where I will place it within my website.

My second page is an 'about me' page, i don't yet have a profile picture of myself yet and so I did the same from my show reel page where i left it with the original image from the template I used. However underneath I did write up an 'about me' paragraph detailing all the information I would expect to find on someone else's site.

Later on (when I was back at college) I was able to take a profile picture for my portfolio website using a plain white background that looked more professional.

Step five

Finally I added a contacts section at the bottom of my website, I did this by adding a 'Get in touch' strip, I changed the colours and logos to my preferences. I haven't filled in my actual details yet however as i am not actually looking for work at the moment but this again shows where I would have those details if I was active in looking for filmography work.

Peer review

After some presenting my website to my peers i made some changes to my website to improve the quality.

-One thing that was noted about my website was that on the 'about me' page the use of the black background highlighted blank spaces within my website. For this i changed the main background colour from black to white, but still kept black as a main colour element in my website.

Once I was back at college I was able to take a photo for my profile picture of my website, the feedback I got from this was very positive and was said to make my website look more professional, originally I was unable to take a photo from my home as the lighting wasn't very good and i didn't have anywhere that had a plain white background. 

- Another piece of feedback I received was that some people prefer to contact designers through forms on their website as it can be seen as more 'professional', as suggested I added a contact form under contact section on the section page of my website.

I also think that adding a contact form helps fill out this page of my website more as before it looked slightly empty.

Evaluation

Overall I am very pleased with my website with the design and layout, I look forward to completely filling it in and expanding my portfolio website when I have more work to show as my experience progresses.

Originally I struggled using Wix to create a website, this was probably the main issue i had with the project as I had never used Wix before, nor had I ever created a website on any other platform. Admittedly I did struggle with designing my own website as I never realised how complex creating a website was and graphic design had never been my area of expertise but it helped me gain an understanding behind the processes of building a website.

Something that went well in my opinion was finding a colour scheme that I liked. In my opinion I think the pink pastel contrasts with black and white really well and makes my website positively stand out.

Moreover I am pleased with the chosen font on my website as it is quite a soft basic font but ties in well with the delicate pastel pink of my website.