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Concept Description
- Objective:
- clean, bright, playful
- Target Market:
- women 20-40
- Categories:
- web design gallery artwork
I've uploaded a revised version based on everyone's feedback: more colours, more styling, and better sidebar. Thanks again!
A relative has asked me to design and develop a website to showcase her artwork. She paints children's pieces, watercolour, and fantasy. She also paints custom pieces for clients.
Her requests were:
- playful, featuring unicorn(s)
- bright colours, mostly pink
- categories for her artwork
- ability to purchase paintings or prints online
- testimonials on the frontpage
- frontpage gallery with lightbox
I am more of a developer by nature and would love to improve my design skills, so I welcome any feedback you have!
Thank you in advance for your time :)
Cheers, Serina
Previous Versions
Version 1
Concept Reviews
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Serina,
Would it be possible for your relative to create the illustrations for this website? It would really help give some authenticity and consistency in the design. Once you add her pieces it might actually conflict with the illustrations you've chosen.
I would recommend keeping the fun illustrative parts of the website to the header and maybe little accents. But keep the rest of the site relatively simplistic and take out the backgrounds you've chosen for the cart and the round graphics at the bottom. THey will compete with her work.
I think you're at a point in the design it's important to pull in some artwork - even if it's not the final artwork. Once you see how the colors of the products work with the rest of the page you might start to see what I'm referring to.
If your relative can't or won't create illustrations for this website, I recommend you choose a fun color palette and stick with it for the site. Maybe the pink and purple from the unicorn. If you need help - colourlovers.com and kuler.adobe.com are great resources.
This unicorn has a great look to it. You should tie that same style into the logo/name. You have a bright vibrant unicorn but pastels...
Keep playing with it, you will see it start coming together magically before your eyes!
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good layout i like it. It is very nice & funny
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Nice use of color since your target market ppl are women.
Lack of brightness in the site. May try some bright background for header and footer.
Try some other cart icon
Nice work... Well done
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Serina Patterson commented:Thank you for your feedback. Brightness, eh? hmm - I guess playing with contrast would help there.
Cheers, Serina
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I think you have hit the mark as far as clients requests. On a personal note I am not fond of the Liana Patterson Font/design/word aesthetic/type. It borders on looking dated (think original Photoshop layouts.) I think what brings it "into the now" is the last 3rd of the page. "I am more of a developer by nature and would love to improve my design" I would not have guessed it -well done.
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Serina Patterson commented:
Thank you for your feedback!
The fonts I am using are: Pixiefont, Existence, and Georgia, a mix of serif and sans-serif. Would switching the name to a handwriting-type font or sans-serif font help?
I picked the Pixiefont because it looked playful and young - qualities that the artist expresses in her paintings.
Thank you for the compliment! Any design work I've done has mostly been for programs or text editing (academic sites mostly. This is my first try at something for a client who owns a business :)
Cheers, Serina
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Robert Tipping commented:I dont have an off the rack suggestion for main title if it where me I would have to make something(not because I'm trying to be clever I just don't think I could use an of the rack font.). After the title the body text is not nasty or anything I would start with the title and see how it looks after that.
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Serina Patterson commented:
Thank you for your help :)
Based on your advice, I've been tweaking another font that actually seems to work better for her name (though I am by no means a typographer). I'll definately look into building custom fonts.
Cheers, Serina
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Robert Tipping commented:
Making your own font is one way a little ambitious and I found it tiresome. What I had in mind was handwritten-Scanned_Traced with illustrator which is easier than it sounds or take a font and change to outlines in illustrator (I only use illustrator but I know you can do this with Flash and fireworks as well and I restrict recommendation to vectors.)If your in photoshop latest I believe there is vector capability there as well I just have not used it.
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Serina Patterson commented:
That's a great idea, Robert! I hadn't thought of scanning handwriting. I use Illustrator and Photoshop, so no problems there. Thanks for the suggestion :)
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I know I am beating a dead hoarse here but it still feels very girly to me. That may not be a bad thing depending on your target market. I know you mention that your target market is women, however, are you really only trying to attract women that need graphic work? Something to think about...
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Serina Patterson commented:
Thanks for your feedback. To be honest, it is too girly for me too ;)
Although the artist requested that site be mostly pink and purple, I think I'm going to add even more variety to even the colour harmony out a bit.
Cheers, Serina
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Thank you for the suggestion! I had thought about including her artwork as part of the site at first, but her artwork doesn't really lend itself well to this kind of manipulation. She also isn't really photo or tech savvy. I used ColourLovers for the palette (and it was indeed inspired from the unicorn image).
I haven't tried Kuler yet - thanks for the tip :)