Blog Entry #3

PART 1
Select a good (or bad) example of design and comment on at least TEN (10) rules coming from our readings and/or web resources. Explain why particular rules were (or were not) followed. Your examples can come from websites, magazines, etc. Be sure to share these examples on your blog!

I chose a local business, Smallcakes, for my website critique.  Honestly, I chose it because it was the first thing I thought of.  I guess I have chocolate on the brain.  http://www.smallcakescupcakery.com/
Smallcakes has a bright, fun website that promotes an atmosphere of happiness. 
I reflected on the following aspects of the website:

1.  Mistakes.  More than anything else, I feel that spelling and grammar mistakes kill whatever message a business is trying to send.  If you can't be bothered to check your spelling, you appear careless and unprofessional.  Smallcakes delivers with a mistake-free website.  Any site visitor would be able to browse without being distracted by typos. 

2.  Splash page.  Smallcakes does not have a splash page on their website.  Though we were shown examples of splash pages that made sense and were well designed, a splash page would have been an extra click for site visitors that would have distracted from the overall feel of the page. 

3.  Fonts.  Smallcakes does a great job of appearing fun without overusing a variety of fonts.  Their logo and the carousel at the top employ several fonts, but the rest of the page is consistent and clean. 
Check it out here: 

 

4.  Symmetry and grids.  Take a look at the screenshot above.  Smallcakes also employed symmetry to display a lot of information while maintaining a clean and readable page. 

 

5.  Horizontal bar.  Smallcakes did not use any gimmicky horizontal elements to their page that could confuse a site visitor.  They did include a carousel of pictures and promotions at the top of the page that scrolls horizontally, but the site visitor is not forced to move horizontally.  You can see in the picture below that the carousel includes arrows on the sides to easily navigate side-to-side.

 

 

 

6.  Obvious goal.  Smallcakes leaves no room for doubt about their services or products when you visit their page.  Their products are displayed prominently, their services are clearly articulated and the site visitor is able to easily access additional information about the business. 

 

7.  White space.  Smallcakes' site does not employ a lot of whitespace or large margins.  For me, this was the one negative element The site does have a slightly cluttered feel to it. 

To compound the cluttered feel, the pink bar containing the logo and navigation buttons is static and takes up about 25% of the page.  When a visitor scrolls, only ~75% of the page changes, giving the page a slightly constrained and squished feeling. 

You can see in the picture below that the top section is the same as seen in the picture above, though this content is much farther down the page. 

 

 

 

8.  Pictures.  Smallcakes excels at including a variety of mouth-watering pictures of sugary goodness.  The page is filled with pictures of cupcakes and ice cream in a variety of flavors.  No doubt, the page entices the visitor to buy the product.  The pictures are professional, clean, and large enough to draw the visitor in to the experience. 

 

9.  Colors.  The page uses consistent colors to maintain a clean feel, despite being crowded.  Smallcakes uses shades of pink and brown to draw the users eye around the page and bring consistency to a variety of content and images.  Smallcakes does "break" one of the design rules by using pink font on a pink background, but I feel that they did a great job.  The end result is easy to read and has a warm, happy feel. 

 

10.  Navigation.  This website is extremely easy to navigate.  There are no surprises and links were in standard locations, making content easy to find and follow. 

 

 

PART 2

Design harmony.

 

I chose to complete exercise 1 on page 58:  Repetition.  I designed a page for a macaroon company and the following slides showcase the use of repetition in advertising. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used several pictures that highlighted repetition but kept the text the same throughout.  I chose simple text that complimented the pictures and stayed with black and white.

 

I carefully chose professional looking pictures that maintained their integrity despite being sized up. 

 

I did struggle with the use of the logo.  I've never designed a logo and I felt like the logo was really repetitive considering the simple content in my text.  Had it not been an assigned part of this project, I would have deleted the logo.