assignment: mmdp program web site

[derek lapp]

i see teamps is starting to come back to life, so i figured i'd throw some of my stuff up for reviews.

"the final assignment will consist of a finished, professional, web site for the MMDP (multimedia design and prodution) program. the web site will contain elements created from each one of your classes this term. IE flash, web coding, database interaction, & video. at the end of the term you will present your web site to a panel consisting of all your instructors."

this will be a group project.

this is a contest, the group who wns the contest will have their website featured as the official MMDP web site."
this was the basic brief breakdown we recieved back in january. since then, the ontario college's went on strike, taking 3 weeks out of our semester and my class panicked about dealine issues because no one though to do work on their own time outside the classroom and because of the number of complaints, the prof's made it optional to pull out of this and do individual assignments. i decided to just go at it on my own since my group showed me no iniative or sense of consistancy.

because of the month long (3 week strike, 1 week spring break) most people pulled out and there were only 3 other mmdp site submissions. as such, i doubt they'll live up to their end of the bargain and go through with a contest winner/live site. i've heard nothing about it and the semester was over a month ago. none the less, i proceeded as if nothing changed.

notes:
doing all the design (layout, artwork, logo, typography), development (xhtml, css, javascript, php, mysql) i really didn't have the time to write up more detailed and accurate course descriptions.
the student page is dedicated to mmdp graduates as a sort of talent scout for employers. this section would be populated by the professors because it would only contain hand-picked students for case studies. i simply used myself for an example because of time issues. i've just remember i need to add a link to download the students resume in pdf & doc format.

link: http://clients.vectorthis.com/mmdp/index.php

cheers fellas.

edit: i see there's a seperate section for web stuff, i thought the chowcase was all grouped together sorry about that. you guys are free to move it if you'd like. :)

[malibu]

Well, Rich has compressed and reorganized the forum structures a bit, and we haven't really fleshed it out much yet. There's not really a Website Showcase to feature our own stuff, so I think I'll just leave it here.

Is this page I loaded an individual student's page? Or is this intended to be the index page of the site, and student's would have individual pages below? There's no obvious navigation to take me from this point further, so... ?

If this page was a personal page, it's great, but if it's just a front end (aside from the lack of navigation) there's other issues. The header is immense. The term from print days was 'above the fold'. In web days, this refers to the stuff you can see without having to scroll down. You have given up almost all of this precious real estate (even at 1024X768, which still makes up the majority of web resolution out there or smaller), to you logo and header. While I don't worry much about 800X600 any more (although maybe I should), I still try to look at what a page will look like at 1024X768.

I really like the vector self portrait! It looks like you rushed a little thru the face portion. Not quite the texture or depth as the other parts of the illustration. The bold use of a worms eye perspective is dramatic and I like it muchly. Paitence is apparently a virtue you have, this type of illustration can be time consuming--and you've done a great job.

[OnCleSAm]

I gotta say that visually, this website is perfect to me. The illstration, the header, the navigation, the colors... all is just nice and everything flow together.

But, like Malibu said, the header might be a bit too big for smaller resolutions (mine being 1600x1200, I didn't have any complaint to make).

Good work overall and I hope to see some more stuff from you soon. I hope also you didn't do all this for nothing!

[derek lapp]

hehe thanks guys.

malibu, you hit a spot issue with the header size. i work on 1280, so it never occured to me, but the header and menu is half the screen on 8x6. it's not so bad on the front page, because it's mostly visual, but the inside pages it causes a problem. as for the menu issue, there's a menu bright and clear in the top right of the website. the only thing i can think of is that oyu've got a flash blocker plugin or something similar.

the web site is supposed to serve as the program's place on the web. instead of going to the main colleges site, and getting basically a digital brochure, the site will be exclusive to the program, giving updates, like adding a new course, or new faculty, or even just program events like a pub night, providing the neccesary info about the program, and also add a little bt of interaction for the current students.

something was always bugging me about the design, so when i went back to rework the header, i decided to dumb down the "zip" to the layout so it matched the college's web site (http://www.fanshawec.on.ca) more.

i'm till waiting to take photos from this tuesday's graduation ceremony, so i might have a coded revision up in the next week or so. i'll post updates as they come along.

there's a preview awavailable here for now:
http://creative.vectorthis.com/mmdp/screenshot.jpg

[malibu]

hehe thanks guys.

malibu, you hit a spot issue with the header size.

Heh... /me puffs out chest and takes the rest of the night off from fighting evil websites...