KingRauni's Blog

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week 7 - Critical analysis of ‘Yaya’ Portfolio

When attracting traffic to a website or portfolio, the designer needs to be aware of who they are targeting their market at and what sort of audience they need to engage. This means that within the portfolio relating to editing and video shooting the key things are more than likely going to be interacting with the audience, showing previous work or a clients list and lastly a theme so that the user can identify the designer and their products to the website at hand.

The portfolio under analysis is ‘Yaya’, a freelance video and film editor, who also works for the BBC. On the home page it isn’t necessarily clear as to what Yaya does, the colours are dark and the graphics are a cross between animation and pictures of people, maybe previous work. The about me page has a brief description and this shows us more in to Yaya’s life which for the user is good.

The overall layout for the website is collected and kept from the top of the page to the middle, it goes no further down the page the user could be confused and assume half of the page is lacking detail, so when designing a similar portfolio this is something to highlight.

The portfolio page is detailed and has a drop down menu so the user has a choice in what they choose to see, the layout is clean cut and keeps in theme with the dark colours. There is nothing on this page to distract the user from only Yaya’a work and this is good as otherwise there could be links or videos leading them to different websites. It is based solely on him.

The contact page is unique with an animation and real life picture of Yaya on the right hand side; this shows the user his real face and allows them to identify with the work they have just seen on his page. Overall this portfolio has mainly pros rather than cons, the only thing as a user is that it lacks written information, it is all video based. However this could be seen as creative due to the line of work he is in.

Link to website: http://www.yayayaya.co.uk/

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Week 6 - Evaluation of Lowri Jones for The Design Studio

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week 5 - Professional Portfolio – Who do you want to be? (Generating Trafic)

The basis of allowing your portfolio to bediscovered on the Internet by other users through search engines all depends on the key words you use to associate it to your portfolio. SEO (search Engine optimization) focuses on these keys words and helps people to find your page, the more keywords you use the higher the chance of your portfolio to be found in search engines such as Google.

Through the use of these keywords, search engines give your portfolio the chance to generate more traffic. However according to ‘The Guardian’, SEO’s are “decreasingly less important” now that social is taking over.  Traffic is generated by the amount of people click on your website/portfolio however this is only a way for the algorithms to determine in what order your portfolio should appear when someone uses a search engine. As mentioned in The Guardian the use of social media has become a much better way in which your portfolio/website can be found. Places like Facebook/Twitter/Instagram are all good ways, which generate traffic. By spreading your work through the share/re-tweet buttons you can create your own hype through word of mouth and not rely on SEO to determine who see’s your work.

Although The Guardian’s post makes sense and social media is the way forward in terms of generating hits. SEO are still very important as it still allows you promote your work to perhaps, an unintended audience, and even there you are still able to draw more hits through word of mouth, because although it may not be interesting to the user who clicked on it whilst looking for something else, he/she may recommend it to someone else.

Overall as a freelancer you should want to generate as much traffic as possible to your work. So you should never rule out SEO just because something else like social media is providing a more efficient way to generate hits. You should be willing to use both so the uses of keywords are important so that your portfolio/website is found.

 Reference:

T, Anderson. 2013, ‘SEO is dead. Long live social media’, The Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/22/seo-is-dead-long-live-social-media-optimisation

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Week 4 - Online representation of brands and people

Converse, Inc. Is a company that started off as a rubbershoe company in Boston, 1908 and has been around for over a century, since then Converse has taken part in developing their brand and their logo into becoming one of the most recognisable all around the world.

Converse has played major roles in America particularly being the official shoes for the NBA and manufacturing suits for the army in World War 2. However in 2001 the company filed for bankruptcy because companies such as Puma, Adidas, Nike and Reebok took over the brands targeted market. Later in 2003 Nike bought Converse and helped them get back on track, Today Converse is now popular for its retro style shoe. (Wayne, 2003)

Because the Brand has been around for such a long time, it has become something customers can trust for good quality products. Their logo has become famous around the world and it is something very distinguishable, the iconic star can be recognised anywhere especially in western culture.  Their endorsements with celebrities, determines what demographics the brand goes out to. Because celebrity status is very sought after in today ‘s popular culture. By exposing their logo with a celebrity, Converse becomes an eye candy brand for the fans of that celebrity allowing them represent themselves as a cool brand to wear.

“In 2006 Converse and John Varvatos, a leading designer of men's clothes, starting cooperation and represent the first collection of men's and women's sportswear”  (Triple jump, N/A). This shows that Converse is attempting to extend their fashion line and connect with more people through collaboration.

Overall Converse has been a very successful and very well thought of brand especially in recent year since being bought by Nike. Regardless of its file for bankruptcy Customers still like to wear the brand not just because of its 100 year history but because it good quality and in fashion.

 Reference:

L. Wayne, 2003. ‘For $301 million, Nike buys Converse’, New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/10/business/10NIKE.html

Triple Jump, N/A. ‘Converse – about the brand’, Triple-Jump.com - http://www.triple-jump.com/Triple-Jump/278/About-brand.shtml

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Week 3 - ‘I am HERE’: Standing out from the crowd - The problem with clients.

When it comes to dealing with clients you have to make surethat you have good communication between the both of you so that everything is understood. At times the client may be unclear of what he or she wants so constant communication is key to making sure that the client gets that they want.

One of the most basic things you should do as a consultant is keep a record of all conversations. After every meeting or phone call, follow up with an email to the client and summarise the main points of the meeting. (C. Bradford, 2013)

The brief given was of a one-page sketch, which contained very little information about what it was that the client wanted. After having a verbal conversation and having a more or less clear idea of what the wireframe should look like, a draft of the website began to be created.

Brief given by Sally Riley:

After having completed the wireframe and shown to the client, it is safe to say that the customer liked the way in which the website was going and commented that the layout and navigation of the website were good. She did however end up almost changing her mind about what she wanted her website to look like and mentioned things which she wanted changed and things which she wanted added on.  For example she wanted the font to be more “girly” and the theme of the website to be pink and purple. These are just some of the things, which originally were not in the brief.

She also wanted things added on, for example the initials S.R. (which was a creative idea of the hired personnel) she felt that the S should be bigger than the R and also that there should be graphics embedded onto the end of the Y in Riley as in more of a “girly flick”. Sally also mentioned that she wanted and extra page where people advertise themselves and put up voice notes.

Dealing with clients such as Sally can mean that you have to constantly be in communication and give updates so that the customers is always happy with your work.  There is always a chance that the client may see your work and change their mind completely about what it is that they want. This of course can be very stressful however if the pay is good enough then the hired personnel should attempt to complete their work to the best of their ability but always bearing in mind that without constant communication it is likely that the client will not be happy with the finished product.

Reference:

C. Bradford, 2013. ‘How to deal with challenging clients’, The Moz Blog -  http://moz.com/blog/how-to-deal-with-challenging-clients

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Week 2 - Wire-frame for Sally Riley

Home Page:

About me:

Ask Sally:

Contact Me:

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Week 1 - Does Education Kill Creativity?

From when you are a young child, you are usually given paperand crayons so that you can learn to draw and colour to express yourself through your creativeness, and as you get older you’ll learn to speak, write, do math etc. School teaches us the basics of what we need to know in the world and eventually you have the chance to either opt out of school or carry on with further education and polishing your knowledge.  However, schools often teach you that you must learn English, Math and Science and will work the academic side of a person’s brain more than the creative side.

Although English, Math, Science, History and Geography are important subjects to know, the same can be said about Art, Dance and Music. Different people express themselves in different ways and some are better than others at different subjects. Just because one person isn’t good at Math and Science but is brilliant at Dance and Art doesn’t mean that they should be penalised at schools with things such as GCSE’s, which prevents a student from furthering their education unless they get a certain grade.

In Schools we are taught that it is important to be right and will often be punished if we are wrong however, Ken Robinson, (2006) Stated in his TED2006 talk that “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” He also goes on to say, “we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it, and specifically we are educated out of it”.  School’s drill into students that academia is the best way to be successful in life and go into a good career, although this is not applicable to all students.

Throughout history there is evidence that some of the most well known people have actually excelled through their creativity over their academic work, people such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Shakespeare although the same can be said about Einstein or Stephen Hawkins and their work.

In truth education attempts to create people who are capable of contributing to society by creating more teachers, doctors, scholars and politicians however it is important for society to have actors, musicians, dancer and artists because if they didn’t exist the world we live in would very different than what we’ve come to know.

 Reference:

TED, 2006. ‘Ken Robinson: How Schools Kill Creativity’,  [Online] available: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en#t-381739