Abdul Mobarak

University of Salford

[abdulrm]

https://www.facebook.com/paper#

Facebook have created an app called Paper. This website features the app, all on one page/screen, no need for scrolling. It offers a full preview of the app, allowing you to see different pages and options the app has to offer. The imagery on the screen is a video which shows somebody using the app, rather than just a single photo.

[abdulrm]

http://builtthings.com/

First of all I would like to comment on the logo for this furniture company. The designer has used a simple white sans serif typeface with the dot on the ‘i’ in orange. It is so simple but works really well.

The logo is set on a welcome video when you open the website you get a glimpse of things they have worked on, its only a few seconds but makes the website stand out. I really like this as I can produce a short video that replays on a loop and wont take too much memory for Hassans site. Or just use some nice imagery.

The website has some room for improvement however, I’m not a fan of the navigation, it pulls down as if you are using a mobile, but maybe thats why it was designed that way, so the site would work on all devices just the same.

The pictures on their feed page allows you to see more of their projects with a transfer to instagram. When you hover over the image it tells you where it will take you before you click. I think this is a good way to use hyperlinks for images, and would be looking to incorporate this idea to Hassans site.

[abdulrm]

The Designer Cake Company site is really simple and clean. It provides users with alot of information in the most simple form. Most of the information provided is just text however which gives the website a bit of dullness, as graphics can make a piece of text more visible and pleasing to read.

Their photography however is really good, you can tell the company creates bespoke cakes for any occasion. I also like their testimonials, I will be looking to do something similar on Hassans website.

[abdulrm]

The Walkden Cake Company offers their customers a bright and inviting website which is colourful and really beautiful. The typography choice is smart and simple and personal. Instead of using the words ‘Contact Us’ they humanise it by saying ‘Get in Touch’, making you feel as though you are dealing with a person rather than a robot. 

Their price list is very simple, giving customers the starting price of cakes, from which they then can contact for their own personal choice of cake. 

The gallery is again very simple, a four column spread of all the photos. When you select a cake it brings up a pop out slideshow that you can move left and right on. I really like this and would be looking to integrate something similar into my design. 

[abdulrm]

Fino Par single page website which is really minimal has all the characteristics i’m looking for to create Hassans website. The colour scheme is also in line with the brand design.

I think that single page websites are the way to go nowadays. I personally prefer the user experience from a single page website as it provides you with access to all the pages within one or two clicks, without deviating to a completely different page. 

[abdulrm]

http://supremesupreme.co.nz/

I don’t know what it is about simple websites that make them look much more professional. This site has a really nice feel to it, with the funny double shot picture engaging customers to share the brand name in order to win free coffee for a year.

The configuration of the website is really simple, it’s all on one page and most of the information you need is contained in the header/navigation. Which opens up when you click on the hyperlinks.

[abdulrm]

http://barkascoffee.com/

A beautifully designed, simple and yet brilliant website. Barkas Coffee’s website is a single page scrolling site, but has click through links for their story and other information. The product page can be clicked on to show different products.

It is a really nice website which is easy to understand and gain information from. I would like to do something like this. It shows that photography is essential for the website to look good, therefore I’ll check with Hassan to see if he has any existing good quality photos for me to use.

[abdulrm]

Cakes by Vanilla, is another baker who has made alot of cakes. The cream and brown palette is my favourite thing about the website. Again I’m just looking at what pages the baker requires on their site. This one has less pages with alot of information again!

I didn’t bother reading much due to the amount of words and how bad the type is laid out. I am being very critical but only because I want to make a site that is much better and simpler.

Also the gallery isn’t really pleasing to see either. The boxes are quite small and doesn’t make you want to click on further.

[abdulrm]

http://www.cakesbyruth.co.uk is quite a detailed website with alot of information for people looking to get a cake. The reason I had a good look at this website is because I want to know what other bakers are doing and what pages they require for their site.

Hassan won’t need as many as this, and definitely alot less detail(text).

I might create a pdf pricelist for him which he can use to help customers get an overview of costs before they enquire.

I quite like the illustrations used on cakesbyruth.co.uk especially on the cakes page where customers can see different options available with different types of cakes.

[abdulrm]

Logo colour experiments. Hassan has said he wants the logo to be black and white, however even though it looks good black and white, I’ve decided to show him that colour can make a different too.

The colours I chose were just from the swatches on Illustrator. However I selected cream as it is the colour of a plain cake and resembles alot of the cake ingredients. I think if I was to use colour, I would use cream along with either blue, grey or brown.

[abdulrm]

Using the pathfinder tool i’ve managed to make a pretty good cutout for the word Cake, as well as merge the ‘s’ with the circle. It looks really good and I’m happy with the result. I’ve shown Hassan the different styles I’ve done for this logo. I really like the inverted logo and the half inverted one too. But he doesn’t seem to.

Apart from them the bottom two logos are the strongest in terms of typography.

[abdulrm]

Instead of creating my own typeface I’ve been looking at fonts and found this really nice one that’s quite similar to my sketch. It looks way better though as everything is in proportion. I’m overlaying the text onto a circle with a stroke using a calligraphy brush to give it weight on the sides and less in the middle.

I will now try merge the ‘s’ with the circle, it needs cutting to fit, shouldn’t be too complicated.

[abdulrm]

I really liked this idea, so I decided to try it out on Illustrator. I wanted the typeface resemble the curved wall of a cake. I did some quick experiments of what it might look like and my favourite logo was the middle one. Although neither of them were good enough.

[abdulrm]

Chosen logo scanned in. The first logo I used image trace and didn’t clean much of it up, hence the rough lines.

On the second logo I used AI’s smoothing tool to clean the rough lines and replaced my handwritten text ‘Hassan’ with a typeface.

3 and 4 are just more cleaned up versions of 2 with a different typeface.

I spent a lot of time trying to clean up the typeface as illustrator’s image trace traces all the imperfections of a hand drawn typeface.

In the end I was considering tracing over the whole logo myself but it took alot of time and i was put off by the lack of consistency with my letters.

[abdulrm]

Although this doesn’t look like much, this was based around the shapes within the letterforms.

I was experimenting to see what the shapes would look like without the typeface and if they looked good together.

Unfortunately not, but glad I tried it out.

[abdulrm]

Chosen logo design, needs alot of work done to it however as I’m not happy with the ‘cake’ letters. The rest of the typefaces don’t matter much as they will be re done using existing typefaces, however if possible I would prefer to digitally replicate and edit the ‘cake’ type, as I want it to look a certain way.

The ‘s’ forms the circle around the logo too. The reason i chose the logo to be circular is because I’m considering getting stickers for Hassans cakes and circles exist in almost every cake, unless you get a square one!

[abdulrm]

Logo Design Ideas

I’ve done around 30 different logo designs, the first page all the logos were based around typography. At the moment logo 4, 9 and 11 are my favourite sketches as they look as though they have been put together purposefully and fit. The other ideas were more experimental and don’t seem to promote professionalism for a brand image.

Page 2 is more of an abstract approach to the logo. I started off by seeing what shapes exist in the letterforms and then building off those. But in the end the I decided that although it took alot of thought, the logos didn’t scream out to me.

After discussing some of these logos with Hassan he has chosen number 4 which was also the one I picked out of all the logos.