I have been looking forward to this, finally, not just designing but building my own personal website! Since creating my personal brand last semester, I have been thinking about how to translate my designs for the web.

As always, my design process went in several directions, allowing me to flush out all the undesirable ideas and find the best direction for my design. Taking a que from my broad-striped presentation folder, I chose to offset my site content on both sides with a broad blue strip and a narrow magenta strip.

I took quite a bit of time working out my site navigation. I endeavored to create a site that logically organizes a large body of work and intuitively leads the viewer through the site with well placed navigation.

There have been plenty of challenges presented with this project, but the payoff for getting through them was worth every frustration-filled minute.

www.jessicataylor.getsdesign.com

A week after ending the spring semester I am back in class! I am really excited and (I’ll admit) intimidated, to be taking Web Design. We’ve been in class five days now and mid-terms are Friday, but thus is the nature of a summer class.

Before taking this class I had heard about Web Standards and Accessibility, but other than knowing that they were good & important I was pretty in the dark on what they actually were. Thanks to my professor (Leslie Jensen-Inman) ever-endeavoring to make the Web a better place, my short-sighted eyes have been opened! Web Standards (generated by the W3C or World Wide Web Consortium) and promoting Accessible sites are so logical, and in many ways obvious, that one might wonder why they are not embraced by all web designers and developers.

The whole point to creating a web site is to communicate to the public, right? So using code that is compliant with the W3C standards, which is proved to make site navigation easier, should be a no-brainer. It also seems practical to have error-free valid code, which the W3C is more than willing to assit you with at their free on-line validator at www.validator.org.

Web Standards are not just practical, but they also help improve web accessablity for everyone, especially people with disabilities who require assitence from a screen reader or other similar device in order to navigate the web. Careful coding from the beginning can ensure that everyone is able to enjoy all that the Internet has to offer.

The Section 508 Standards at www.section508.gov states the requirements that a Federal web site would have to meet and they are a good place to start for basic web accessibility.

Much of the information in this blog has been gained by reading Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niederst Robbins (the textbook for my class). For a more thorough explanation of Web Standards and Accessibility check out chapters 3 and 10.

MARCH 20, 2008

TAKE ROOT PROJECT SYNOPSIS

For the past 2 ½ months our class has been intently focused on the Take Root project. Take Root is a non-profit organization formed by a local leadership class seeking to raise funds to plant trees in downtown Chattanooga. For many of us this was our first opportunity to work with real clients and vendors. I have never learned more in such a short amount of time than I did on this project. From client relations, to print quotes to group dynamics, it was an invaluable experience that I am glad took place before graduation.

Our class named the tree planting initiative Take Root and supplied the tag line: Plant. Grow. Sustain. The Project consisted of three parts which were divided among three teams that together created the identity for Take Root: the brochure team, the event team and the identity team. As a part of the identity team, I learned about all the different parts that make up a brand’s identity. We were responsible for designing the stationery, (letterhead, envelopes and note cards) providing the necessary file formats, and for the creation of an identity standards guide. My main responsibilities were to write/revise the content of the identity guide and to flow my team member’s guide pages into an identity guide master file keeping a consistent look and feel to the pages. This project gave me a new found respect for my chosen field of study. I am looking forward to learning all I can about the graphic design profession and this was a great opportunity to grow as a designer.

Here are some photos I took of the materials our class designed for the Take Root initiative:

Creating my own personal brand has been quite a challenge. I wanted the look and feel of the material to express who am as a designer without boxing myself into a particular look or style.

I used intricate patterns in combination with bold geometric lines to reference my love for both artisan and modernist design. I also utilized serif and sans-serif typefaces to integrate traditional elements with contemporary ones. In these simple contrasts I have striven to showcase sensitivity and versatility as well as strong typography and composition in my brand identity.

Here are some photos I took of my presentation folder and my stationery:

Our class recently was given the opportunity to tour the National Print Group/Retail Merchandising Group in downtown Chattanooga. After touring a newspaper press that was all about timeliness, it was interesting to see the NPG/RMG presses that are all about quality control. The equipment they have housed throughout their campus of buildings is stagaring itself but the output is even more impressive.  I was fascinated with their presses, from the massive KBA Rapida 205 offset press that uses 7 inks and can print up to 7,000 units per hour, to the digital press that can print on substrates as thick as your front door. To actually be able to see with my own eyes what we’ve been reading about and discussing in class was really an invaluable learning experience.

Richard Beeland, with the mayor of Chattanooga’s communications department, and Janis Hashe, an experienced freelance writer and editor, provided our class with some very valuable information regarding press releases and marketing. This topic might seem out of place in a graphic design class, however the jobs of writer, marketer and designer often overlap, so it is critical to have a working knowledge of them all. That is why this was a particularly important opportunity for us to learn about working with the media in general and sepcifically newspaper editors and journalists.

This project gave the class a chance to familarize ourselves with working in grayscale, duotones and halftones in order to give an image a specific emotion. I used a soft color palette of yellow and purple tones to enhance the feeling of clam to a photo I took of a sunset. With each successive image I tried to make the image softer giving the effect of a fading sunset.

In contrast with the calm panel, this image is designed to be nervous. I used a green and yellow color scheme to make the clouds in the sky more ominous and menacing. In the final image I rotated a transparent halftone version of the image to give the landscape a tilted, off/kilter feeling.

The most recent visiting artists that came to UTC took some time to talk with our class and discuss their ideas and methods. The non-traditional mediums used by these artists provided a new and interesting context for our class discussion with Mark, Disney and Ryan. I was inspired by their exploration into undefined artistic territory. Mark made a comment on this aspect of his work saying that he was looking to find beauty in mass produced items and repurpose materials created for utilitarian purposes.

We also discussed the need for space and time to clear your mind of the practicalities of life; the need to give yourself the opportunity to think of new ideas and to become inspired. I thought that made sense; my best ideas usually come to me right before I go to sleep, when I’m completely relaxed.

Frank Anthony, an executive at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, was a very enthusiastic guide for our tour through the facility. The historic building housing the staff and press is full of interesting architecture and has been beautifully maintained. The press itself was a very impressive flexography printer that was truly stunning to watch in action. The tour of the Times Free Press gave me a lot of valuable insight into the business and process of designing and printing a major newspaper.

The Brand Gap

How to Bridge the Gap Between Business Strategy and Design

by Marty Neumier

A brand is not a logo. A brand is not an identity. A brand is not a product. Brand is intangible, a gut feeling, an emotion. Brand is not what you say it is; it’s what they say it is. Brand is the combination of logic and magic, strategy and creativity. Yet, in most companies, strategy and creativity are separated by a huge gap. Bridging this gap is the difference between the brand that no one has ever heard of and a brand people believe in.

In brand building there are five major disciplines: differentiate, collaborate, innovate, validate, and cultivate. To differentiate a company must consider three questions: Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter? The first two questions will help to clarify the focus of the brand, but the answer to the last question will be what sets the brand apart from its competitors. Building a brand takes collaboration. Many companies are creating their own brand building communities by mixing and matching brand agencies with internal marketing teams. Brand innovation is always risky and sometimes costly, but the cost of not innovating is far worse. “You can’t be a leader by following,” (76). Validation through field testing and unobtrusive observation is an excellent way to reassure those who might be paralyzed by the “fear of stupid” (80). It is also a smart way to test a brand’s distinctiveness, relevance, memorability, extendibility, and depth. Cultivation of a successful brand requires constant adaptation to changes in the marketplace while maintaining consistent handling of the brand. The brand encompasses the whole company from the product, to the employees, to the stationary. To have a successful brand all these must work together to support the message presented to the consumer.