Monday, January 10, 2011

Windows Phone 7

In preparation for our final major project at uni i had free rein of what i wanted to do for the next project. As a result i chose to do a D&AD brief to give me some kind of structure to work towards. The brief i ended up picking was for windows phones new operating system "metro" which is based around the design principles of airport and metro train signage, easily understood and recognized. I looked at as much information as possible that was available on the new operating system and reading through promotional material to try and get a handle on the design ethos around the operating system. From this i gathered it had to be clear, coherent, bold, engaging and typographic. I was limited to only using the "segoe wp" typeface that was the font windows phone seven featured and had to be used in conjunction with the final piece i was to create.

After experimenting with different layouts and ideas, i looked at incorporating the symbols used on the phones operating system, playing around with different combinations of symbols being differing sizes and groups.



I also worked on different layouts an combinations bearing in mind that they had to be clear and coherent with minimal fuss.




Bearing in mind the design principles of the operating system i settled on a clear and coherent layout similar to what you would find in train stations and airports with a list of symbols next to text to clearly identify where things are. The words that I incorporated alongside the symbols I felt helped mirror the understanding of that particular symbol.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

nixoncreates.com


As part of a project for uni I had to design and create a website from scratch. The website had to be based on myself as a means of have a presence on the internet. As a result I wanted the website to incorporate my design and illustration work giving a snap shot into the type of work i create.

As a complete novice at building websites i researched various programs on and off line that would help get me started, making the decision to steer away from html coding and programs like dreamweaver. I also wanted to have complete freedom over the program starting with a blank canvas and building the site from there, hence i moved away from template websites such as wordpress, wix and tumblr that have pre built menu's slideshows etc. This ended up leading me to a piece of software called freeway that allows the user to build a site from scratch. This software allowed me to create my own rollover's, menu's, slideshows and layouts to my specification and needed no coding.

The software itself took a bit of getting used to but with a few tutorials allowed me to create the desired effect i was after culminating in website that could easily be navigated and gave me the web presence i was after.

However since the website has gone live i have uncounted a few problems with servers and hosting sites and the website can only be viewed on a few systems which i am currently in the process of rectifying.

nixoncreates.com