Wilson latin dance

The first project of the summer is for my dance instructor, he is a young professional dance instructor who needs a website to advertise and let be known. He has been in Latin Television, and has been mention is Latin Newspapers too. Besides, he is the best dance instructor, because I am actually learning how to dance.
I was requested to to the website bilingual which I have never done before, I am so excited about it, I will be a big challenge but it will be fun too, it is always nice to have projects that we love to do.
Today was the due date for the mock-ups
This is the first one:

And the second one:

My client likes the first one better and I do too, it has more spice, like we all Latin people do, but it is also challenging, because I want the website to be found by google, but I also wanted to have some movement, it will be probably half flash, half html, jquery and some php.
I have a month to finish this website! It has to be done before the summer!

Graduate Class 2009

I am so excited, I’ve been using this blog merely just for assignments, I am so happy I finally graduated, and this blog will be use for all the projects that I will be doing for the summer. Web design is my passion, it is what I love to do, and I will be doing some freelancing while I look for a job. People think freelancing is not a real job, but it is as time consuming as a full time job, but we designer know that in order to accomplish good designs, we have to sacrifice time, this does not mean that quantity equals quantity, but we also spend time researching, getting some inspirations, and learning about the clients, and companies, and the ones with are working with.

I am now a graduated student of New York College of Technology, majored in B.Tech. Communication Design, class 2009.

What’s next? The question, we all graduate students make after getting our degrees, we all hope that all nights we did not sleep will pay off.

What I know now, and I have learn while studying, it is that studies will always be with me, as an artist I can say that good skills are not always the path to be successful. We are on a path where we have to keep learning and know what is going on around us. I believe this is what a good artist is.

I am concerned about being a good professional each day, and now it is the time to start building a better road, for me and for all the people I love. So far, I just want to thank my mom for giving me the support and the love I needed to become what I am now. As well for my best friend who has encourage me to give always my best.

Mock up

This was the first template I created for my website, but it needed improvement:

My old website had the option to change the look of the template and my second template looked like this:

But the final mockup looks like this:

The final look took me a lot of time, it has plenty details, from the background to the galleries. But the result has more consistency than the others and the technique shows my improvement as a designer.

Logo Redesign

The evolution of my logo has a big history, but last year when I decided to create my book portfolio, I decided to create something different as my logo, it had some of my personality, I am not afraid of using colors. My first logo used to look like this:
However, when I was redesigning the my new website, I decided to create something more artistic without losing what I created first, I took me to create more than 10 designs, and work on the ones I liked the most. The idea of my logo lead me to chose the palette I wanted to use for fabycreates.com.
The final logo look like this:

I am very happy with the final result, it looks more artistic and at the same time it reflects my passion for art.

This is the site map of http://www.fabycreates.com

Site Map

1st lab blog

One of the most important steps while creating a Website is to research and figuring out what we want the Web site to do and then constructing and planning before put the thing together. Of course one of the first steps was to learn about the company, this is a young company that has offered its services since 2007, and the company wants to reflect that in its website. The company wants their clients to visit the Website, because they offer help with computers and with web, and they want their clients to find helpful links and a glossary with all the technical words that they find in websites or computer manuals.

The next step is to figure out who is going to use the website, who our audiences are, and what they are going to do with the website, and where they are going to look for whatever they want to do with the Website.

To summarize a helpful way of how to do all this is important to follow all these steps:

1 Define the Site’s Goals
2 Ask Questions
3 Filter the Answers
4 Design Document – Site Goals

Define the Site’s Goals
One of the ways to do this is creating a questionnaire like I did in my previous blog to find out and put all the research together and have a clear idea of what the website wants to accomplish.

Ask questions
After determining who will be involved in designing the site, you need to come up with a list of questions. These questions help you determine the site’s mission and purpose by involving everyone in the creative process.

Filter the Answers
Now we need to generate order from this chaos and filter the responses. We need to turn the answers into goals and figure out which goals are the most important.

Design Document – Site Goals
The list of goals is the basis for the Web Site.

The second steps is to follow the next:
1 Define the Audience
2 Create Scenarios
3 Competitive Analysis
4 Define the Audience
It is the basis for a list of all possible audiences. Add as many audiences as you can think to the list, and ask everyone if they have any additions.

Create Scenarios
This step helps to visualize how the website will look. Scenarios help in validating the site’s design.

Competitive Analysis
Knowing the competition is a good way to learn about your own site.

The next step is the Site Content
Now that we know what your site is going to be about and who it is for, we are ready to pinpoint what it will contain.

Site Structure
This step is where we define the site’s structure, which is the foundation on which we build everything else.
Think of the site structure as a skeleton that holds the body together.
A good tool for this step is a Sitemap. It helps us to define the navigation

Visual Design
Wireframes are usually helpful in this step, it allows us to know how we want to design our website design and helps to organize the content. Mock ups are helpful too, it allows us to know how we want the website to look. They establish the look and feel of the site.
The page mock-ups are the basis for a Web-based prototype or, if your site is small enough, the basis for building the actual site.

Taking everything into account, this website wants to be fresh and innovate, we want to offer the services of the glossary because it is usually difficult for people that are not familiar with the web or computers in general, what is the meaning of the words.
This is a company that has offered its services since 2007, and the current website does not reflect that this is a professional company. The company is run by a college student, who is really professional and offer his services and he actually goes to his clients whenever they need them, and he has with a web designer that has helped him in the development of web designs, these are simple websites for companies or people that do not want to pay a lot of money for a website, and they are usually looking for something simple and useful for their needs.

1st Lab Practical Research

Research
I. What are your specific objectives for this website? Explain and list in order of importance.
The main goal of this website is to let know what is the company about, and to promote the services this company offers.
The company wants to establish and foster long-lasting relationships with our clients based on trust and added value.
Diplomat Computer Services is a young company that offers computer services, repair and maintenance.
The company offers web design services, computer training and other services.
The website wants to promote their services and at the same time link helpful websites and have a technical glossary.
This is a young, professional company that wants to help our target audience with any problems they might have with their computers, or with the software.
The company wants to redesign its website, it actually has a domain, but the current website does not reflect that it is a small company but it already has experience.
The owner of the company wants to showcase some of his works, this website will serve as a portfolio of what the company has achieved so far.

II. Who will visit your website? Describe and explain your target audience.
Basically, the target audience is any small company or person who needs help with their computers and are not able to do it by themselves, because the company offers different services, our main target audience is hard to explain and specified it. But the company wants to offer services to clients that are currently in college, or families and small companies.

III. What do you want your visitors to do on or with your website? Explain in detail.
College students usually are looking for articles and they will find new articles about web designing, trendy software, antivirus software and the website will offer a glossary of technical words that are usually found in these kind of articles.
At the same time, the company can promote our technical services to any family who owns a computer, or small company; the company offers computer training and any client interested can contact us, the website will have a contact page where they can write to the company, but we will offer a telephone number and a email.

IV. Why should they be interested in your site? What benefits them?
The clients will be interested because besides this is a company that offers technical computer help, the website wants to help our client improve their experience with web, and with computer software.
We offer a glossary that can help our clients to understand better the web and their need with a computer.
V. What information are they looking for?
The clients will look for a contact page and they will want to know who is the company, what the company specializes, and they will find a portfolio where they will see a peak of what the company offers, such as technical computer help, and a portfolio of the websites the company has created. The company offers good-looking small websites, at a great price.
VI. How will they get to the information they are looking for?
The navigation will be the way the clients will find the information they need
The homepage will be a small portal of helpful links and a brief peak of what is the company about.
In the navigation the clients will find and link of the homepage, how to contact us, helpful links, a portfolio link, services link and a glossary link.
The internal pages such as the glossary will have an organized navigation and links of the words they are looking for, it will be in alphabetical order.
The contact page will have a telephone number, an email, and we will have a link to find out how the cost of a website and other services.

VII. How will they advance through your website? How will they return to homepage/transitional pages. Is it quick and seamless?

This will be a typical navigation, it will be easy, and all the pages will have at the bottom of the page a small navigation, just in case the clients do not know what to do.
The home link will be in all the transitional pages, and it will be easy to visit the other transitional pages.

Articles to read week 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI – GUI history Overview
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/ – Effective Web Design
http://www.montparnas.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design/ – What is User Experience Design?
http://web.wm.edu/reweb/whatisia.php?svr=www – Information Architecture
http://www.experientia.com/blog/dubberly-design-articles/ – Putting People First

http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/20-websites-to-help-you-master-user-interface-design/ – 20 websites for UI Design

http://www.uiresourcecenter.com/user-interface-design/articles/what-where-how.html?s=1_1 – User Experience

http://alistapart.com/articles/learntowrite – Need for Designers to Write
http://www.montparnas.com/articles/more-evidence-that-speed-is-key-to-user-experience/ – Speed and User Experience

Assignment 3

Graphical User Interface (GUI) is a program interface that allows us to communicate with the computer, such as Microsoft Windows and the one used by Apple Macintosh.
The history of GUI started since 70s, when the XEROX Park was the first computer to use it. Since then, the development of GUI has developed and achieved to be used in different devices besides the computer, such as mp3’s and cell phones. The elements that allow us to interact with these devices through a graphical user interface, and through the years the different operating systems had develop new and sophisticated ways to interaction.
In the article of 10 Principles of Web Design, the article explains we need to understand how user interacts with the Web Sites in order to create and usable Web Site. We need to know how users think, users do not usually think they scan through the Web Site, and users usually look for friendly Web sites not cluttered with images and unnecessary information. Experience design is the practice of designing environments with the quality of user experience; this is the reason why we need to put in the place of our users in order to create a successful Web Site.
Information Architecture helps us plan how to deliver information and plan the structure of a Web Site. Information Architecture is one of the many elements that Experience design uses, as well as Interaction design and many others, but all that combined help us to a better grasp of the concept of human – computer interaction and to create accessible planned Web Site that would help the users to interact with facility and explore the Web Sites with ease. Information Architecture is a big tool in the planning of a Web site, is the structure and the base of how successful a Web Site can be.
The article about “Calling all designers, Learn how to write”, it seems really interesting, as a designer we just care about the design and structure of a Web site, we usually ignored the “writing” part, probably we cared about typography, but we leave out the importance of the main goal of a Web Site which is to be seen and to be used, most of the Web Sites deliver information and we leave this important stage for the end, “lorem ipsum” delivers nothing, it is just dummy test, but I have actually find Web Sites with it, just to fill out space.
The “UI articles” was an interesting article and help me understand better the principles of usability; as a Web Designers we have to create an easy way to help our users to interact with the web sites, make it easy for them, and put ourselves in the place of the users, Rich Internet Applications nowadays help us to do that now, there is an instant feed back to the users.