My Finished Portfolio Website

https://lisalouiseadams97.wixsite.com/mediapractitioner

Social Media; Presenting Myself as a Brand

Presenting Myself as a Brand

Now that my website is up and running, l have made some alterations on my Twitter account. I have yet to create a professional Instagram account because l feel that adheres mostly to photography and designers, whereas l want to tap into the theatre and casting industry so for me Twitter and Linked In are the best forms of social media for me to do so.

I now have a complete and coherent brand which represents my work and my aspirations. I will continue to work on my brand image and work beyond this module and connect with people within my intended industries and hopefully end up in employment! 

My social media strategy is to connect with companies and industries of my interest, interact with their social media accounts and start making myself known. I have also started to connect and talk to post-graduate film and television students who are giving me information and tips into getting involved in the industry. In some cases, l have been offered work experience, which would be a great start to summer! 

Evaluation of my Portfolio

My Final Website

For the most part, l followed my designs and uploaded all of my desired content to represent me as a media practitioner and someone who is interested into getting into the casting industry. Back in the beginning l found that people with high levels of confidence and enthusiasm is just as important as experience and this is something l think l have achieved. 

I used the paneling to split up my information, as inspired by Squashed Robot Films and other contemporary websites, which l think works well for the amount of content and information l have. If l had more professional level content to showcase then l would have used a more complex layout with more webpages. Upon reflection, this has inspired me to create more content and to show off the skills that l have beyond what I've uploaded onto my website and to work hard on the things that l do love like photography and videography! 

I love the coherence of the colours in the images to the layout of the website! 

After some critical thinking and feedback, l decided to include a image of myself in my portfolio as l think it does give it more personality and it creates a link between my name and my face. Although, this may cause some discrimination, l think it's important to take ownership over your work and this website is something I've designed, so therefore that is the level of skill and creativity l have and it doesn't matter how l look. 

Finally, something l wanted to add in was credits. I haven't seen this on individual portfolios, however l have seen companies talk about the people they work with and their clients and l wanted to take the same approach. I wanted to showcase my experiences that aren't on my CV and allow my audience to know about my professional life as well as my hobbies and what I've produced. 

Overall, I've enjoyed this project, being able to create a website that is a collection of my best work, I'm happy with what I've produced at university and can't wait to move into the professional world. My only criticism of using Wix is that it seems to be complicated to fix a easy issue, such as my footer altering in size, dependent on the browser and technology used to view it. This is something l have tried to fix but haven't been successful with, which is irritating as that is the one thing that l think lowers the level of professionalism on my website.

My Finished Website: UX

My website is compete and live! 

Using Wix l have created my online portfolio and am now ready to enter into the world of work...

But of course, my opinion on my website doesn't matter, it's my audiences, as they are the ones that are going to be judging it, viewing and interacting with it. So l conducted a short amount of UX research, sending my portfolio to my friends and family without any context just to have a look!

The feedback l got was insightful, whereas l thought my website was complete, l was informed that when you look at my website through a phone view, the footer at the bottom of the page was disproportionate to the rest of my website. Looking at my website on a phone isn't something I'd thought to do throughout this process, and of course this is one of the main sources of traffic, people using their phones to access my website. So l tried to fix the problem, however the issue on the homepage is to do with the aspect and layout of the rest of the page and is something that evensong Wix's Codex, l can't seem to fix. I will continue to try to fix this issue as it makes my website look unprofessional.

The rest of my user experience feedback was positive, people measured me how they understood the main purpose of the website and liked the content that was on there. I even received some feedback from some very eagle eyed peers about literary mistakes! This helped me to improve the mistakes and make simple adjustments to fix the issues.

Conducting user testing also allowed me to explain my reasoning for doing things, such as the screenshot below shows criticism for speaking in third person, however this is something l found in my research and l liked the appearance of it, as it allows people to read about me and not just from my point of view.

Making my Brand Coherent: Other design elements

To accompany my portfolio l did some extra branding, including business cards, compliment sheets and a letter head. These all create a more successful branding image and replicate a real world company or portfolio.

Business Cards 

A business card is useful in social situations where you are approached by potential contacts within the industry that don't know you or haven't seen your website. This contains your general information such as your phone number, email address and website. I have created some designs that cohere to my portfolio website and my general branding. 

Before I'd chosen my final design l decided to create multiple designs for business cards to experiment and have more choice. 

Design Phase One

Rough sketches of how l want my business cards to look. I used different layouts and features to create a distinguish and sophisticated appearance while also remaining simple and relevant.

Design Phase Two 

Finished photoshop designs. 

I like al of these designs but to cohere with the rest of my branding here is my final business card design:

Letterhead Template 

When becoming a legitimate professional media practitioner you may need to write official letters to companies or people of importance, so thus, l have also created a letterhead template. I added my own signature to create a more authentic piece. 

Compliment Slip 

For similar reasons as l created the letterhead l also created a compliment sheet, so when l socialise at more formal events l can write notes or information in a more formal manner!

Using the same layout as l have for my website, l used the bottom portion of my compliments sheet and letter head, to hold my contact details and then at the top is my logo, replicating the same layout as my navigation bar.

Each of these designs would also have my web address on them, however l haven't received any further user testing yet so my website isn't finalised, these will have to be updated in the future, but for now these are the general designs of extra pieces that conform to my house styles and branding.

I'm happy with these designs l think it looks official and represents my role as a media practitioner. 

Choosing What's Best For Me

Choosing how to create my portfolio is important because l want to have full creative freedom to create the portfolio website l want to have. To help me decide what would suit me best and what would give me the end result l took into account these factors:

• What my websites for
• Who are my audience 
• The flexibility and ownership l want to have with my portfolio

These were my main factors that would impact my decision. Previously l have built websites before using HTML and CSS on Adobe's Dreamweaver, however for this module l didn't think this was needed. The purpose of my website is to have a online portfolio which is heavily focused on video and picture content rather then information, and this is something a website builder has the peer to do while allowing me to have my creative freedom to design and adjust the pre-designed layouts. I also didn't want to code another website, as this is something l am doing in another module so wanted to do something differently. 

My intended audience is like minded individuals, industry professionals and creative employers that will be looking at my website, which is why l wanted to use a reliable website builder that would create a professional website to showcase my design work and hopefully get me more experience in the industry. Although, a secondary audience could be under-graduates or amateur media students who want to get in contact with me to learn more about being a media practitioner! 

Website Builders

There's loads of different website builders that are available to me, Wordpress and Wix being the main ones l was looking at. I've used both Wordpress and Wix before during work placements and in my own time so l am familiar with them. 

Wordpress allows you to have more control over creating your website, it allows you to create a online store, a membership based website and a lot more complex things that for this project l won't be using but for future reference it is a great site to use for this. Like Wix, Wordpress has a lot of pre-made templates you can follow and then edit to adjust them to the requirements for your website.  However because of the complexity of Wordpress it means that as a user, l would need to keep up to date with their plugins and website updates in order to make sure my website would work smoothly and this isn't something l wanted to do. Of course, l expect to make updates throughout the beginning stages of entering into the industry, but l didn't want to have to keep updating my knowledge of the hosting website. 

Wix, is something l am very familiar with and something i've used before for fun and for projects, so l was comfortable with their process. I looked at Wix and Wordpress' pre-made designs and found Wix had designs similar to my own, having designs that are on one page and using anchor points to seperate the panels of information. The only con l found with Wix is that sometimes with their free plans - what l am planning on using for now - sometimes they have Wix related ads come up on your website, which can take away from the professionalism of my site. 

However this is something l look past as l will be using their free package. 

I have never had a bad experience using Wix, so l will see how it goes creating my own website on there. Hopefully, my designs will look similar on Wix as they do on Photoshop!

Website Development: Digital Designs

The next step for me is to create a rough design of what l want my websites to look like using all three designs on my wireframes. As l am unsure of whether l want to code my website or use a website creator such as Wordpress or Wix, it is important for me to know how l want my websites to look so l can either code them exactly how l want or chose a template that replicates my ideas. 

(My websites have information and images/content that is temporary, it's just to see my overall layout of the website)

Design: Website #1

Design: Website #2

Design: Website #3

In conclusion, l love all of these designs and l think they all have elements of style, sophistication and creativity which is something l really want to portray on my own website. I love how the pink of some of the images combines with the colour scheme and makes it look cohesive, this is a element l didn't think of when selecting my images, but I'm glad they work well with the general house styles of my designs. 

Overall, l think that l would like to merge the designs of website 2 and 3 to create an overall style, because they share similar conventions and layout and are both clearly state what l do as a creator and show my work in a organised fashion. I think the panelling using lilac, grey and white is really effective and is visually appealing as it all ties in together. 

The only element l am unsure about is including images of myself. I am unsure because sometimes thi can cause discrimination and I'm not sure this is something l will use in my final design, l will experiment however and see what works best alongside some user testing to clarify my thoughts! 

Website Creation: Wireframes

For these initial wire frames, l decided that l wanted to follow the structure l had with my CV, and use the left hand side for the navigation bar and logo. I thought it would create a coherent appearance and work well with my CV and overall design.

Although this design coheres well with my CV, l don't think it has the energy and style l wanted in my website, but l will see when it comes to designing them in photoshop as when more content is added it may look more balanced. I think it currently looks more like a social media page rather then a portfolio.

Wireframe, Design #2

These next two designs follow the same technique as the Squashed Robot Films website does, by using paneling to split up the information. Although l have adjusted and rearranged the navigation bar and layout to see which design suits my brand most. 

Wireframes, Designs #3

These designs follow the same conventions as my second design. Very visually weighted, split up by panels, have a clear structure and visual hierarchy.

I like all of these designs and am excited to start experimenting using my own logos and branding to start to design my portfolio! All of these websites are designed simplistically and are content focused to ensure that my portfolio is visually appealing to my audience and can attract attention from potential employers.

Website Development: Design Inspiration

Next Steps

Researching into website designs is something I've done a lot this semester as l have been designing websites for another module, so l have been looking into website designs. Although my website is a portfolio and not a website for a company, l wanted to create the appearance that my website was a company as l think this is professional and a stylish way to design my portfolio.

One of my biggest inspirations was a local film based marketing company; Squashed Robot Films, they recently updated their website and created a modern and informative website that utilises their video content to create a exciting experience for their users. They have a one page website that is split up into different sections using panels, to make it easy for the users to navigate through their website. Having this style also gives the company the power to create a visual hierarchy the users have to follow, whereas if they had separate pages the users may not navigate through each of the pages. 

Having a showreel at the top of the page immediately promotes the company and ensures users that this website is for a company that produces high quality video content. This is a dynamic design that has impact on the audience as you don't have to search to find out who they are, what they do, it's written in the logo, in the video, it's clear, and that's something l want to incorporate into my designs.

Having panels to split up the information is a convention l think really works in websites as the clear layout and breaks up your content. This is a convention l have used in my final project, designing my websites using panels to clearly give my audience targeted information. 

In my research, this design hasn't been used in many portfolio sites, so l think it would be a unique design if l incorporated it into my designs. Something different. I think it'd work well because l don't have a lot of information of content, so it would be a good layout for me to showcase all my work.

Website Development: Visual Style

Now that I've created my brand identity, have my colour scheme and typography for my website it's time to move on to creating my website. Reflecting on my research, people created a simplistic website with minimal pages and minimal information, this works well for portfolios because you want to showcase your work to an audience in a easy way, that has good UX principles.

Finding information easily is key when it comes to portfolio websites, so l wanted to create designs that have about three pages and are easy to navigate around. To help me design my website l decided to create a feature list of everything l needed to have on my website. Creating feature lists is common practise when designing a website so that you can ensure you have appropriate features for the type of website and they are coherent throughout the site.

Feature List

List of features to go on my website pages:

Homepage

·      Navigation Bar

·      Links to other pages

·      Logo

·      Text

·      Headers

·      Images

·      Videos

·      Footer information

·      Social media logos

·      Image Slider

Portfolio Page

·      Navigation Bar

·      Links to other pages

·      Logo

·      Text

·      Headers

·      Images

·      Videos

·      Footer information

·      Social media handles/logos

·      Scroll function

·      Image slider

·      ‘Gallery’ Wall

·      Images expand when opened to show more context

About Me

·      Navigation Bar

·      Links to other pages

·      Logo

·      Text

·      Header

·      Images

·      Footer information

·      Scroll function

·      Download icon

·      Downloadable document

Contact

·      Navigation Bar

·      Links to other pages

·      Logo

·      Text

·      Header

·      Images

·      Footer information

·      Scroll function

·      Information box

These are the basic features l want to have on my website, but as l come to the design process some of these will change depending on the type of design l go for.