Final

Final Project – Due Thursday, October 20

Pick an existing website of your choice. The website must be a business or organization, and not a personal site for you or someone you know. Create a re-designed version of this site for your final project but give it a new name –your final project will be inspired by this site but will not use the name from this site.

Write a narrative critiquing the effectiveness of the current site. Base your critique on the objectives from “The Basics of Web Design” reading and the critiques you did Week 03.

  1. The Grid
  2. Color Palette
  3. Navigation
  4. Design Principles
  5. Typography

Describe what works and does not work with the design. Who is the target audience? Post this critique to your Tumblr blog.

Redesign 5 pages of the website you’ve selected to redesign. Create a sitemap for your project and save it as a PDF to your “source_files” folder. Create a design comp (for all 5 pages) in Photoshop paying close attention to the layout and the balance and composition of the page. Using image slicing (we will cover this in later in class), create the assets and compress their file sizes effectively. Pay particular attention to the consistency and functionality of the navigation system. Using either a one-column structure or two-column, build the pages in HTML using one external CSS file.

Specifications:

  • Optimize your design for a browser resolution size of 1024 x 768 (remember the dimension of your page should be 990 pixels wide and “the fold” is around 560 pixels. The page should not end at 560 pixels!)
  • Your Photoshop file must be RGB and 72 dpi.
  • Set up your file structure correctly with a “final_last name” folder containing 2 separate folders: “final_web” and “source_files.”
  • Complete 5 HTML pages with one external CSS file
  • Must use HTML text for the main content of your site, not images.
  • Please use images you have created, or free or royalty-free images on your site. (See possible sources below).
  • Upload your final project to the class server via FTP.

Possible sources for images: