design
initial design
Before creating a story board for each page I felt it was necessary to design the basic skeleton and get all my ideas and thoughts down on my hard drive's magnetic iron oxide particles.
So I proceeded to open up Macromedia Fireworks 8 and started to design. To the right is a screen dump of this process.
Due to the fact that the partners do not want an ordinary company web site and one that reflects their 'professional yet personal' approach to business, I want to demonstrate originality in the actual design itself.
So I decided to produce one element that encapsulates the purpose of the company and clearly demonstrates the creativity of the company at the same time.
One of the main emphasis of the company is to produce software for large organisations that is accessible for all. So I came up with the idea to create an exciting accessibility function which will both benefit disabled users and be stimulating for normal visitors.
Many good web sites have a 'skip to content' button or link. The PSD website will be no different, except I will be adding a little spice to it! When browsers have Cascade Style Sheets turned off (usually for disabled users) it will appear before the navigational list, so that they can quickly skip over all the pages listed. But when CSS is turned on, it will appear at the very top of each page completely invisible to users until they roll over it with their pointers.
You can see what this cool little function will look like when some one rolls over it in the finished design shown below:
As you can see I have split the base of the page into two. I have also made the navigational bar very clear to the user.
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