Design Brief I: Moodboards. Ideas?
Here’s where we’re at in terms of Art Direction (Part I of Design Brief). This is what we’ve given FEED to work with (tomorrow you’ll get the wireframes and content architecture).
If you have other inspirations you think we should look at, please comment with link.
We view the site more as a publishing platform than a corporate website; in the sense that it is built to present our ideas and vision of digital media, through projects, ‘processes’ and editorial content rather than a fixed scripted pitch.
We feel the design should allow the visitor to go randomly through 2-3 articles, understand what we do and be inspired to engage with interactive media. and preferably with us.
Eventually, the site could generate conversations around specific topics we cover, whether on the site or in people’s social networks.
From a design perspective, a few strong preferences go to:
- Tactile feeling, ‘catch’ pieces of content, swipe them to get the following story, and push it down to read later.
- Words/titles drive the story; they of course supported by images; they are written with that function in mind.
- Good rhythm in the navigation. Animations support a dynamic experience and do not aim to become content by themselves.
- Simplicity and elegance but not stiffness or too bold and bare.
Web Design
Monocle is good mix of strong art direction and editorial line.
Although their content is journalistic and ours corporate, their storyline is fun to follow.
Easy of access to information, image+title driven navigation. The closest webdesign I’ve seen come close to iPad design; titles are simple, supported by a strong image that entices the user to get the content they want by clicking on the whole highlighted box.
Typography is the navigation. You are lead to navigate through the site through bold words on black background; content loads quickly and does not reload pages endlessly to increase CPM. Not bad for a software website.
For the way they describe their business and the stuff they do. Although they are designers, their website design is kinda ‘sloppy’, focusing on the statements and the content and eases the eye from visual distractions.
One page web site (+ a private platform for members), daring and well articulated vision.
Very rich content, gives a feeling of reading about something and not necessarily listening to someone’s pitch. Of course it’s ideo and their content is endless -ly interesting.
iPAD designs
FT ipad edition: Legibility of content pieces on the cover page is great
Flipboard’s interface system is it. It links the reader directly with the content -versus to a tweet that leads to it. The layering system to dig in works very well. The automatic layout of various contents on the page breathes well.
Time magazine iPad edition: nothing extraordinary there except maybe the title and sub-title under the picture.
Vman magazine – iPad edition. It was love at first sight with the art direction of each article, the titling system and overall layout are great
.
Other modules; mostly image-related:
The original idea for the site was to go with a Tumblr platform, simple posts with images. It is tactile, and leads you to the content swiftly. Here’s a good one:
http://fuckyeahmiddleeast.tumblr.com/
Good photo zoom tool, in the interface, with adjustments to the remaining content
http://css-tricks.com/examples/RevealingPhotoSlider2/
very smooth sliding of images, with adjusting the size of frame
http://www.cubancouncil.com/
it’s not really my aesthetic, but I’ve always loved these guys. In response to my previous comment (on the next post), lots of modularity, but with a strong voice/personality, further expressed in the “field guides” section.