Set 7 gets rid of the bark texture and lets the pictures do the talking

set 6, last of the older style

Basically the older style has the bark as a major composition element.

if that link to the clickthrough model doesn't work, try these

small shifts, and a prototype link

I'm working my way towards some key decisions this weekend. Namely, can I be satisfied producing the prototype for the Summer Solstice website with some sliced JPEGs and HTML? How much better can I present this concept for a mini-site to the National Park Service with just a little more polish, and one or two animated files for good measure?

More aesthetic variations on previous efforts are what I intend to present this week. This time the image files are linked together with HTML pages and hosted on my server. You can find the images here: [link] (if link breaks, try http://www.limcaco.com/gr605)

Even better news: I get my SLR back from the repair shop today, so I have the next two weeks to get some bonfire pictures for the front page...hopefully.

One more round of non-clickable art

I thought I had a shot at creating some quickly deployable image-map pages, but instead I produced what you see below. I like where the art is going, and once I figure out some interface and organizational strategies, I think I'm ready to slice this weekend using proxy graphics. I plan on shooting some bonfire footage at Ocean Beach but need to gather a crowd to do this. Also, my camera comes back from the repair facility tomorrow, so I'm waiting for that too.

Updated Navigation Elements

This screen "capture" reflects the addition of a media player element, for photo or video, alongside a text area with a scrollbar controller. I have some misgivings about having so much text that a scrollbar is needed. Also, I want to implement this site without Flash, frames, or anything that isn't an open standard. There may be too many glowing elements on this page. I hope to flesh out some of the other pages tonight in class.

I just remembered the reason for my blog title

I suddenly remembered Alex's question from week 3 or so, concerning the title of this blog. Better still, I remembered the real answer, too. You see, I used to be a much larger person (about 40 pounds heavier before I started grad school a year ago) so that's where the bold part comes from. The oblique part can either be attributed to being Asian (think about it for a second) or having an different point of view.

Okay, back to work.

and now, a brief intermission.

I guess I should have spread around the comment-love last week if I wanted to hear any feedback on these entries. Either that or we're all kind of brain-dead from midterms, which is highly likely. Leigh tells me it was sort-of received well in class last week, so maybe I'll allow myself a small sigh of relief.

Anyway, I'll freely admit that I'm hesitant to commit to a design right now on my own. Just sort of sitting on my hands. In the interest of getting to a place where I can deconstruct the art for building in Dreamweaver, however, I'll be working on the visuals shown in images B through E below. Some issues that I would like to address are:

Maybe use the light pen typography as a framing motif for other elements

Increase the masthead size to better span the page

Contain photography to a predefined area within the page instead of filling the left-third.

Refining the second-tier navigation (somewhat of a problem, but on a mini-site I guess it's not so bad?)

Better sense of hierarchy. Everything is big and "yelling" on the page right now. Gotta rein that in.

If anybody wants to reach me, I'll be sitting here, half-awake, procrastinating by doing excessive thumbnail sketching. I'm giving myself forty-five minutes to get it out of my system. See y'all tonight, and good luck.

out of class today

The images below are listed in reverse from E to A because of the upload order. The only one I really like is the splash page, which is version C. Though it doesn't really look like it, these took an unusually long time to complete.

I'm out sick so I'm not in class, though Im also still trying to make these pages make sense and look good. Not having much luck right now. Any comments are appreciated. I'll be posting more on the weekend if anyone is curious.

thanks,
E

Visual Design Round 2

Image E: Image D, with photography in background position



Image D: Unique Selling Point (Summer Solstice) Sub-Page, Collapsed Nav



Image C: Whole Page as Navigation/Wayfinding





Image B: "Peeking From The Forest" Intro Page





Image A: "Light Pen" header and "Clean Floor" image treatment

A little behind on the videos

This looks like a great weekend to catch up on these videos. Once I started watching the CSS videos, I started to see the implementation flaws in my layouts. I'm reading up on something called the sliding door trick, which is a basic graphic animation technique using CSS positioning, and hopefully it can help me implement ideas C, D, and E in the next post. If not then I'll be depending on really heavy background images to create the final project.

Note to self, concerning photography

We are responsible for obtaining either fully licensed photography or self-generated images for use on our websites. I may have to find a beach campsite that allows campfires or bonfires to obtain the images I want.

A loose development sketch (splash)

This is based on the layout of the first design trial from last week, but represents the shift to the celebration during dusk instead of in the dark. I'm still working on the idea of "standing for the light" and trying to boil it down further.

Stand for the light (a working title): wireframe variations on the website

Accessibility friendly per the NPS.gov style, with touches of my design trial last week:



Flickr-style thumbnail navigation, for user-uploaded photos:



Design Observer-style super-wide sidebar:



A few modifications of my original sketch of the site:

A first pass at a site-map

Early front-page comps for Muir Beach Summer Solstice

Here's a first pass at what the site could look like. I really want to try one this weekend that features illustrations, or hyper-realistic photography in the vein of what Alex was showing in the first week. But I sort of like this first pass with pilfered photos and Gotham text.

Selecting a title for this online experience

While building all the personas and maps for Muir Woods Summer Solstice mini-site, I started to get a better idea of how to summarize the experience for the largest (expected) audience for the site. I've been playing with these phrases, trying to make them into shorter and more precise titles. I'm also struggling to integrate some newer information about my particular event, which is that the event occurs on Muir Beach, and is centered around where Redwood Creek leaves Muir Woods and meets the sea.

There comes a point when brevity is not necessarily wit, nor helpful for that matter. Here is a list of proposed titles/synopses for the MWSS mini-site:

EXPERIENCE FOR YOURSELF THE TIMELESS WONDER OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE AT MUIR BEACH.

THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR IS ALSO THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY: EXPERIENCE THE SUMMER SOLSTICE AT MUIR BEACH.

SUMMER SOLSTICE AT MUIR BEACH: RE-LIVE THE TRADITIONS OF TRIBES AND CENTURIES LONG FORGOTTEN.

DAYLIGHT TAKES ITS LAST STAND AGAINST THE NIGHT: EXPERIENCE SUMMER SOLSTICE AT MUIR BEACH.

Mood boards, combined

Per Mauro's request, I have combined images from last week's two mood boards, choosing first the images which had some sort of meaningful visual impact, then combing through these images for visual assets like color palettes pictures, and textures. I think these get me closer to understanding how to address the aesthetics for Muir Woods: Primal, earth derived colors, animal and plant textures, and images of people entranced by the ritual lighting of a campfire or bonfire.

New Mood Board


Derived Palette and Textures

Experience maps: version 3 vs. original

Somewhere between the drafts of the first experience maps and version 1, I had managed to complicate things a bit. For (the long lost) version 2 and 3, I reduced the list of audience messages to three. The primary message is meant to appeal to those who want to gather on a day that has been declared important, and almost sacred, almost in the way that New Years' Day is celebrated. The secondary appeals are for volunteerism, and for the NPS' other goal of co-sponsoring summer and winter solstice events in local parks throughout the Bay Area.

Experience Map, version 3:


Experience Map, original:


Experience Map, beta 1:


Experience Map, beta 2:

Khoi Vinh on grids, the web, and standards-based CSS

Khoi Vinh is the creative mind behind subtraction.com, an art and technology blog, and the design director for the New York Times. At the South by Southwest conference for culture and technology, he gave a slideshow presentation that suggested a grid-based re-thinking of the Yahoo.com website. There's all sorts of CSS and standards-based discussion in this PDF. Thought you guys might get some real value out of his presentation.

[link to PDF]

Mood Boards for Muir Woods Summer Solstice 2009

Muir Woods Summer Solstice: Get Connected with Nature
For people who are looking to connect with their place in the big picture, with respect to the sheer magnitude and beauty of the natural environment, Muir Woods Summer Solstice is the event to attend.

Muir Woods Summer Solstice: Explore Your Relationship With Humankind
Muir Woods Summer Solstice offers a tribal look at our relationship with each other as well as nature, with gatherings, stories, and the atmosphere of the woods as the dramatic backdrop.