Monday, 28 October 2013

for my line up web page

like on line up festival posters I have decided to hierarchy my line up based on celebrity status and on the demand to see them, this is to attractive the mainstream audience first and then the less popular bands will have a smaller name because of their smaller status. Here is an example of a festival line up poster that has done this.

But as i said i would like my site to really be about strong photography and therefore I plan to put pictures of the celebrities/artists next to their names.
















my final navigation bar will contain the following pages - home - gallery -news - line up - merch (as in merchandise) - info - buy tickets. I have based these upon other festival sites. which are end of the road festival - green man festival - burning man festival - port eliot festival - latitude - cream field and finally bestival.

I looked at design layouts and have chosen to add certain features based on what they have added in their sites and I have used ideas which i think work well. I did like the idea of an introduction page as green man festival has done but after discussing this with my tutor she mentioned that it was a bit dated and the it could be a deterrent from people actually accessing the site as its almost like a barrier from them being able to access it directly.


Creamfields site doesn't have many tricks to it but you get a whole lot of information hitting you on the top left of site the logo is there, the dates of the event and the title of the event. All placed in one place and it being on the top left which when we read left to right means that this is the very first thing we see when we visit the page. This is something I will be incorporating in my design, and although I don't this site compares much to competitors such as latitude and greenmans this part I think they have done better than anything else as it's what vital information the viewers/customers want most.












Monday, 14 October 2013

with my wireframes I was thinking for the introduction page of having a timer to create anticipation for the festival, and a tile slider below of images mixed between the music artists performing there and the social aspects that are involved with going to a festival.

I am now trying to figure out what pages should always be accessible via the header navigation bar. so far my thoughts are Gallery (including videos), News, Merchandise, Buy tickets, Info (which could have timetable and maps connected to it and might not have to be on the main navigation bar to avoid clutter and finally Contact us.

Gallery - so far I think it will contain a simple lightbox full of strong photography (one thing I really liked when researching was the strong photography that was available on some of the sites, this really made it stand out from other competing websites. For example Latitude and Greenman had superb photography making me remember them.


where as endoftheroad, portelliot and creamfields were more easily forgotten. I don't know the situation with this whether or not if I can use copyright material for my sketchbook if it isn't published online? or if we have to use royalty free images we can find which isn't so readily available and the images might not be as good.

News - Here is where I think I can implement acordins easily into my website without it seeming like a unnecessary gimmick I had the idea of doing a live update feed this can probably be done through a plug in again but I would like it to have no watermarks or advertising and this could be quite hard to code into my site. A live twitter and facebook feed (fake obviously) with tags that link to my festival that people are talking about the festival I.E every time someone posts a tweet with #fest2013 it will automatically appear in this feed.
The website that impressed me the most was the green way festival site, they have gone above and beyond with their introductory aesthetically pleasing graphics. with bold colours with a skeuomorphic paper cut out styled design, interesting code that scrolls down the page after a click from the user from the intro to the information provided by the site. 


It has a flat 2d design that works well with the main colours blue and yellow contrasting throughout the site. 

Another feature that is vital to the websites success is the skilled photography on the site, with close ups of the celebrities who are easily recognisable which is the main reason we go to festivals, to see and hear their music and they show the experience aspect to going to a festival also, the bonding with friends in camp. 















Monday, 7 October 2013

Looking at the competition

Over the weekend we were given the tasks 1. To set up a digital sketchbook I.E a Blog and 2. to look at the current festival websites and comment on what elements of the sites we thought were good and what parts of the sites bad.


I started with www.endoftheroadfestival.com the first thing I noticed was that the Buy tickets on the top right contrasts against the background and is always available. The core purpose of these websites is to sell tickets so it's vital to make this as easy as possible for the audience/customer.

The my first take on the website is that they have gone for a rough traditional look of making the website like you are in the woods, camping already. With the uneven carved look of the title typeface  the naturally dull colour theme and styled illustration already give the audience the feeling that this is where they are going to be heading to.