This was our first week of lectures in person. This week Kyle set us a few tasks to complete for next week. This includes the following:

1. Content Audit
2. Look at what heroes are doing (Look at other portfolios for inspiration)
3. Research and Discovery – Google Trends etc
4. Site Maps
5. Content wireframes
6. Start to write your content for your website
   1. Three case studies
   2. Home page(These are the most important)
   3. About Page
   4. Contact Page

Content Audit

Here is a rough version of my Content Audit on paper/

Content Wireframes

I started off drawing some initial wireframe sketches for my portfolio site on how I want it to look.

Then I used a site called ninja and made digital versions of my wireframes appropriately laying out the content and choosing the colour.

Site Map

I drew my sitemap out roughly on paper.

Portfolio Website content

Index/ Home Page

• Title
• Header- Name and Logo
• Navigation bar with home, about, work and contact button
• Brief Introduction
• Heading named Contact with links to my Socials
• Button to take the user back to top of the page
• Footer with my name and Copyright

About

• Heading
• Navigation bar with home, about, work and contact button
• Information about myself
• My background
• Experience
• Education
• Image of me possibly?
• Heading named Contact with links to my Socials
• Button to take the user back to top of the page
• Footer with my name and Copyright

Projects

• Heading
• Navigation bar with home, about, work and contact button
• Images of my various projects with a caption underneath them
• Click on the images to see the full size
• Heading named Contact with links to my Socials
• Button to take the user back to top of the page
• Footer with my name and Copyright

Contact

Take you straight to information where you’ll be able to find or contact me on.

This week I looked at different website Portfolios of designers which will help inspire ideas for my own website.

Dawson Andrews

I liked Dawson Andrews website is clear and easy to navigate your way around. They keep their website design very simple and minimalist with a lot of white space. I like the grid layout and once you hover over the squares images appear. The text they use is pain but professional looking. The navigation is easy to locate and takes the pages. The images and information is very well laid out through out.

Calum Dixon

This website is my favourite as its very subtle. I feel like I might design something similar to this site.

Studio Lovelock

This website is very eye catching I like the colour of the background. Their is a button in the middle once you click it you will be shown a video of their designs in a fun and interesting way.

Craig Walker

This is website is really appealing. I like the animated gif on the home screen it drags the user in. The use of bold text makes it clear to use.

Reflection

Hopefully from looking at these portfolios I will take inspiration from these.

This Week was our first lecture in person post covid. So it was the first time meeting our class. Today Kyle Introduced us to our new module and give us a brief summary of what we can expect to cover in the next couple of weeks to come. The first part of this module mainly focuses on our portfolio site and content strategy. This unit is really all about self-promotion. We looked at examples of different designers portfolio sites for inspiration. We looked at Push VS Pull Content, Content Design and how that its about words and vocabulary but also about how content is presented to the user so that it is easy to use, meets there need and is trustworthy. We will also look at responsive work flows, Discovery, Plan, Text Design, Sketch, Visual Design, Build, Test and Discuss.

This week I have to create a Content Audit, look at other portfolios for inspiration, research and Discovery – Google Trends etc, create a Site Map and Start to write up content for my website.

Here’s my Final outcome of my Website.

Another book I decided to read was “Christian Leborg Visual Grammar” as felt this was a good book as I wanted to look into further detail about visual images. This book was a good way of gaining more infromation not only for this unit but I can use this knowledge as well in the near future and further assignments. In IXD103 I looked at creating visual marques which is made of shapes. This book give me a better understanding on visual grammar and how to create images and icons using abstract objects such as point, line, surface and volume which helps make a shape. We briefly touched on this in semester 1 with Paul.

This book is made up of Abstact, Concrete, Activites and Realtions. I focused on looking at the Abstact section in this book as it was the most relevant area for me. In this section I explored the use of Abstract objects such as line, point, surface, volume, dimensions and format etc. I was given a defintion of these and shown a range of examples to help me grasp a better understanding of each of these elements.

I felt this book was interesting and give me relevant infomation. I liked the way it give examples to help back up it’s point to help me to further understand and to process information quickier. It was short and sweet.

Overall when researching this book I learned about the use of different  abstract elements which will help me in my coursework and espeically in this unit for development of my monogram and visual marque. It taught me that the basics of any design is made up of these elements.

I choose to research the Book called “Infographics: The Power of Visual Storytelling” by Jason Lankow, Josh Ritchie and Ross Crooks. This booked started off with an introduction which covered a brief history of Infographics, the purpose of this book, How to use this book. It then explored 10 different chapters all to do with Infographics.

The World around us is changing. The way information is shared today has changed the we communicate today. Infographics and data visualisations are visually effective way of sharing information and getting the message across in exciting and interesting way to a specific audience.

This book shows you how to use visual communication to attract and get your point across to your choosen audience

Infographics have been around from the early cave paintings to the modern-day data visualisation. People have always had different ways of displaying information in a visual form. Infographics have been spotted back during the victorian area. It shows some examples of infographics.

The purpose of this book is focusing on improving business communication. They hope the readers will be informed and inspired by the use of infographic thinking.

Throughout this book it uses specific terms such as:

• Information: This is knowledge of word, numbers, or concepts that can be communicated.
• Data- This is quantifiable information. In this book, data is mostly numerical.
• Data Set- A collection of data through visulaisation.
• Design- The concept, functionality and graphic out intended to solve a specific problem.
• Illustration- A hand-drawn image.
• Visulisation
• Data Visulisation
• Information Design
• Infographic

Chapter 1: Importance and Efficacy: Why our Brains Love Infographics.

This chapter will present explains the importance of visual communication and how best to use it.

Chapter 2: Infographic Formats: Choosing The Right Vechicle For Your Message

Chapter 3, 4, 6 and 7: Applications

Chapter 5: Content Distribution: Sharing you Story

Chapter 8: What makes A Good Infographic?

Chapter 9: Information Design Best Practices

Chapter 10: The Future of Infographics

This chapter will help use to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies. Infographics are constatnly updating and it’s important information is revelant.

Throughtout this book there was alot of interesting examples of Infographics which were used to represent specific information in visual way.

Information graphics are basically aimed at communication infromation.  Each purpose is different.

This book is a good read. It has give me a good insight into understanding Infographics as well as the best practices. It has helped me gain more knowledge and give me inspriation when designing and thinking of ideas for my own Infographic. I would 100% recommend this book for anyone looking a clearer understanding of Infographics.

By researching this book I am aware of the various forms of infographics and data visualisation designs and the best pratics for each one. I also now the importance of promoting content through the use of social media to share my designs. I know the do and don’ts of information design and how to create more interesting, accurate and effective infographic designs to help me to attract users. I looked breifly into the emegring trend and technologies of infographics in future which i found interesting. Overall I learned alot which will help me in my further designs going forward.

Before I start designing my digital infographic. I made a number of rough sketches. As you can see below these are rough sketches. I decided what I wanted to possibly add in my Infographic and what content i found important. My infographic I choose was on Ireland. I looked up stats and information which were relevant. I was figuring out what I was going for in terms of design and layout.

Brand Guidelines

Brand Guidelines IXD103

Portfolio Website

https://github.com/Sdowney1999/portfolio_website/tree/master

All my web files are here just can’t display in browser.

https://sdowney1999.github.io/portfolio_site/index.html

I’ve been trying for ages to get this working. The link doesn’t work so I had to upload the zip file seperately.

My Portfolio Website

Summary:

I came into this module with very little knowledge on branding and came out with alot knowledge. The aim for this was to learn about branding, learn and develop skills and to create a successful and unique brand identity which was eye catching. I was glad how my monogram, wordmark, buisness cards and visual touchpoints turned out in the end. I feel I achieved what I set to achieve at start which which was to create a personal brand identity. I felt it was an enjoyable module. I will hopefully take the information I gained and use it in my future work and modules.

Infographic on Ireland

This is my Final verision of my Infographic. I took on advice from last weeks Group Critique and made changes. I decided to scale up the size of map. I searched on Google a Map of each of the 5 biggest cities in Irealand and traced around the outline of them and used a blue colour to fill them in. Then I placed them onto the map approitately. I felt doing this was a better way of presenting the info rather than in the circles which I orginally had. I made the content espeically the stats alot bigger to highlight the important info. I also gathered more content which I felt was relevant such as Native Language, Top 5 Non-Irish Nationalities, Currency, Religions and Ethnic Groups. I decided to add more visual graphics in order to make it more appealing to the user.

Overall I am happy with the final outcome of my Infographic design. I really enjoyed making and working on this task. Once I completed it give me a good statification seeing what I have achieved. I feel I added in relative information on my chosen targert and included an apporitate colour scheme. I am pleased with my attempt and felt I put good effort into my work. I made sure I hightlighted and represented the data as best I could. I believe I shown good content on screen and hopefully people will find out a lot of interesting facts and figures on my infographic about Ireland.