As stated above, these are the finished products of a long journey on creating a website that looks both clean and professional. The first part of this project was to come up with a business you would like to do. My choices were between either a game shop, a candy store, and t-shirt online store. I ended up going with a candy store. Next, was to get all the extra details out of the way like a name, color palette, and a logo reflecting both. After much deliberation I decided on the name Caramelody Candy, as though it is sweet music for your taste buds. The color palette was a little more difficult to deal with and I went through numerous colors from chocolate and caramel looking colors to taffy and jolly rancher like colors. In the end, I decided a happy medium, both being a challenge and goal, was the best option for such a project. Afterwards, comps were made in Photoshop to reflect everything I needed to make an effective website, in a neat and orderly manner. Below are two pictures that represent my starting out point to my ending point on the homepage.
As you can see many changes were made over the course of a few weeks and despite it looking far better than the first, more changes were and can be made at anytime. That is why if you look at the main page up at the top and compare it with the picture right above this paragraph, a few more things were changed. You won't always make something everybody likes, which is probably the most important thing I learned from this project. Your goal is to just make something the majority likes without losing sight of what it is your advertising.
Coming away from this project I was able to take a look at my strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses are primarily in choosing a proper color palette and choosing in fonts. I am sure I have others, but those two are the most noticeable. However, my strengths are in keeping up with hierarchy and a nice gridded design. I think my biggest problem in this project was finding the proper kind of inspiration. I felt that I knew what looked good and that was probably one of the dumbest things I have ever done. I know now how important researching the look of other sites is and asking myself, "Why does this work or why doesn't this work?" I am on the internet a lot as are we all, so why don't we look at what is around us to help the continuing flow of good design, while systematically removing bad design. As a designer speaking to other designers out there, take the time to look around you and absorb the material, but also ask yourself numerous questions about what you like from this website and how it compares and differs from other websites. That is an excellent foundation in getting yourself on the right path of becoming an superb designer.
