Formative Critique
This was what I submitted for the critique today.
Before my workgroup session, I went through everyones work in the google dropbox and made myself a list of all the things I wanted to change/incorporate based on what I saw.
My feedback to myself:
- find a colour swatch to keep myself consistent
- find a fun font for the title
- less 'stand out' content and more basic paragraphs
- decide on a website name
- home page is the same as the problem page, it needs to discuss the objective (growing herbs) more
- change homepage title 'pot it like it's hot' and make the size of this bigger
- more 'bites' of other pages on the home page (eg, I could reference a recipes and have a button to take people straight to the recipes)
- bigger dropdown menu, especially for a phone
Before my workgroup meeting I was able to resolve a couple of the things I put on my list above. Firstly, I decided on a website name. It went from 'herb garden' to 'herbs at home'. I also searched through adobe fonts to find some nice ones that I wanted to try for my titles. I tried some different ones, and so far have settled on Chantal, which is a handwritten style. I like that because it makes it seem more homemade and human, which is the whole point of the website, to grow your own herbs at home with your own hands.
I also found a couple of colour swatches to try on Pinterest. I didn't have much time left to try these out before my critique, but I had them ready to go for when I started working on my website again.
My workgroups feedback:
- current dropdown menu would be good for a desktop
- bring in a human element, more humanity shown, lily liked how I had a photo of someone holding a pot plant and even though you could only see their arm, she though that it made the whole idea way more relatable
- NO right justification EVER
- NO centering of type, left justifying and giving it more room will make it look more formal
- not enough contrast between background colour and the other colours
- make the background purple more brown
- relate the facts I'm talking about to my illustrations/diagram more
- nice graphic style so far
- black text box on home page doesn't work with the vertical grid, it is the only text out of alignment
- save bright, stark white for really important information
- take black headers to 95% opacity
- trial some textures in the background, Andre suggested a site called subtletextures
- could have herbs beginning to overtake the screen as you get further into the website, eg. it starts off as a seedling but grows with each new page
- can use bold to highlight some words in a sentence
Move onto desktop before bothering to make all these edits to mobile version.
Finding a Texture
I searched on the site that Andre recommended, and downloaded a few different textures to try. All the ones I downloaded from this site didn't really work for me because as I sized them up to fit a desktop, they lost their quality and just looked bad. I actually ended up searching for textures on Unsplash. This is my favourite free photo site because all of their images are really high quality. Because of this, the image that I found didn't need to be sized up and it retained it's texture.
Grey sandbag
Sand
Vintage speckles
The image I found on Unsplash. I'm not sure what the texture is exactly, but I chose it because it seems like a very organic texture, and since my site is about planting herbs I need my texture to be organic, not some sort of digitally made pattern.
Desktop Design
I'm working with this colour swatch.
I took design inspiration from the site WealthSimple for my home page.
Trialling colours for the title.
Trying a different, more formal font. This one is also easier to read but really boring.
Wondering how to make the image look like it hasn't just been dumped randomly on the page.
Changed the title to 'herb yourself'. This is a pun on 'help yourself' and also telling my readers to integrate herbs into their lives.
Added the 'Get Growing' button in here and trialling things such as a little line.
Really struggling with how to make my image look like it belongs. Decided to trial some an illustration I had quickly made for the problem page on my mobile site. I made it a colour from the swatch and upsized it and I think it really works. The background colour also got darker because I added in the texture.
I remembered what Lily said about liking the hand holding the basil (my photo) and decided to add a bit more humanity into the design but adding a simple little hand here. I think it makes such a difference by making the experience much more relatable.
Removing the texture here just to see what the background looks like it without it. I think the texture makes the background just a bit too dark, there's not enough contrast there, especially with the hand and the background since they are very similar colours.
I like the simplicity of my design so far, even though it is quite different from the mobile design. I'm still going to incorporate a lot of my ideas from that first design, such as the diagrams and illustrations.
