The artist i decided to do my project on was Leetabix, a beatboxer from Nottingham. I thought this would be good as I could keep in touch via email and get the best of what the client wanted, however this turned out to be a problem when i didn't recieve much back and time was running out so I just went for it and did things the way i believe worked best.
I started by designing the logo as this is probably the main focal point of any website. I wanted to include a microphone somewhere within it. I initially used the microphone as the 'I' in 'Leetabix', however that seemed to be a bit blocky and didn't work as well as having the microphone wire emerging from the 'X'. This created a sense of freedom to the main layout of each page, breaking up the content.
The background i initially used was a subtle one of condensation, which i edited in Photoshop, to give it a touch of blue colour. This seemed very apt at the time, however after working on the site for sometime, it did seem to make the text somewhat hard to read, and also, with the file size being over 6mb, it occasionally took a while to load, which would be a pain when viewing with slower internet connections. So, i went in search of another image and chose this black, scratched effect one, which was small in file size, and i believe worked even better than the original, giving the site a somewhat urban, graffiti-like effect.
For the navigation, i decided to use fixed postioned items, so that as the page scrolled down, they stayed in place, overlapping any content but without being too distracting. I believe this is helpful for the user, so they don't have to bother scrolling all the way back up to the top to go to another page, agreeing with the Constantine and Lockwood simplicity principle.
The homepage consists of a news section, which could have been done as a wordpress blog if the site was going live, however time was a constraint with this, but it would be something i would seriously consider looking at in future projects. Alongside this, is a few images in a separate box, so not to overwhelm the user of too much information. This follows the Constantine and Lockwood visibility principle.
Having got this structure sorted, i thought the page was missing something and it didnt seem quite right. So i added a footer, which rounded off the page nicely, and was something that i didnt include in my previous project. Instead of piling it up with text, i just added 3 simple icons, instantly recognisable to the viewer, acting as links to the artists social media pages.
The 'Bio' page, consists of a small bit of text which would explain who the artist is and basic information about him. I believe people would only go on this page should they want to actually read about him, so using too much text wasn't really an issue as this is all that is really expected to be on a biography/about page.
Due to the lack of content given to me by the client, the 'Media' page was quite difficult to do, however i searched the internet and found a few videos and songs, and using HTML5, embedded these in boxes side by side, with the option to view more underneath, by visiting outside webpages.
Instead of using jQuery, I attempted to use a pure CSS3 image gallery, which turned out to be a lot simpler than initially anticipated, and could just about do the same things. Testing this was a problem, due to different browsers being capable of different things, however i managed to get it to a point where everything was functional in every browser, although IE and Firefox did not have the same fading effects as was available in Chrome.
As the brief required the use of a PHP database, I decided to include this in the 'Contact' page, in the form of a comment box, and list of comments. I believe this was quite effective, as it gives the fans a chance to share their views and comments, sort of like a forum or a Facebook wall.
Also on the brief was the inclusion of a mobile site. For this, i included a redirect from the main site that took the user to the mobile version, should their screen size be a certain size. On the mobile site, I decided to strip the site of any music, videos or images as these would cause very long loading times on a mobile phone, and would be quite unecessary on such a small screen. The only pages that i thought were really necessary to include were the Home page, in which i took out the images and just stuck with the news feed. The Bio page, which i kept almost the same, except the changing of font sizes and the Contact page, which i took out the PHP comment board, and used a simple contact form in which you can email the artist with any queries, as this could be something that could be done on the go, on your phone.
Overall I am very impressed with only my second go at making a website, and believe that my skills have vastly improved since my first project.
