This week was our second group critique of the semester, concentrated on both our HTML/CSS and Framer versions of our Street of Crocodiles webpage. I always find group critiques useful, they allow you to see other people’s work and to give and receive feedback. One of the most useful parts of critique sessions is the ability to receive advice, someone in the group may have already found the fix to an issue you’re having or may have an idea you hadn’t thought of to overcome an issue. I find these critiques are the best opportunity to step out of your own solo projects and come together as a group and work more as a team for everyone’s benefit.
For this week we were asked to upload links to our HTML/CSS and Framer Street of Crocodiles webpage builds, even if they were not fully complete. It was clear from my own and other people’s comments that Framer was throwing up some strange issues. As a new tool to all of us this was not totally unexpected, but for me it was a little frustrating. My Framer site was not fully complete at the time of the critique so most time was spent looking at my HTML/CSS version. No major issues came up, with most feedback surrounding giving my content a bit more space to breathe. This involved adding some more margin and padding around images, adding in some more line-height in my body copy and looking at the letter-spacing in my Navigation links.
Adding more margin around my images and line-height to my body copy, were relatively easy tasks. I changed my line-height for my body copy from 1.2em to 1.5em, which is what Google advise in their Material Design as the correct line-height. I also added a 2em top margin to my images to help space them out from the body copy and give them some breathing room.
When looking at my navigation bar text, I couldn’t help but feel the font-size as well as the letter-spacing were too small, especially as I had selected a semi-bold font-weight. I tried making the navigation bar text 1rem, the same as the body copy but this made it too large, especially as my navigation bar is fixed to the top of the viewport. So I decided on a happy medium of 0.85em with 2px of letter-spacing and I was happy with this.
Another change I made after the critique was to my images, it became obvious especially on the class projector screen, that the images were to stretched and the aspect ratio was wrong. Therefore, while it was not ideal, I went back and changed the aspect ratio and made sure the images looked better proportioned. This did make the images larger and take up more space than I had initially intended, but I feel it was the best decision for the overall visual look of the webpage.
For me this module was a bit of a surprise, taking on a more Graphic Design approach than I had expected starting this course. However as the semester went on I could see exactly why this was the case. To design anything you need a strong grounding in core design principles, and that is what this module provided. It is very much a case of learning to walk before you can run, get the core design principles sorted now and use them for not only the rest of this course but the rest of my career.
Learning and working with these core principles, has been a great experience and I have noticed myself improve and think more thoroughly, about whether I am meeting them with each new design or iteration I make. Alongside IXD 102 our other module this semester, I feel I have been given a great starting point to build on as I move on to making more complex and intricate designs. Therefore I believe these were the two perfect modules with which to start this course.
However, this semester has not all been about the deliverable content, throughout all our class exercises and discussions we have been building other more soft skills intrinsic to being good designers: empathy, problem solving and teamwork have all been encouraged and worked upon. As well as a healthy respect for the influential designers of the past who have brought design to where it is today.
While I had experience with HTML and CSS from previous courses, I feel the webpages I have created this semester have been the best I have ever designed. I put this down to incorporating the core design principles and the group critique sessions, which I had not covered before. I have also added to my confidence in building interesting and visually appealing content using HTML and CSS, as well as expanding my knowledge of both, especially with regards to creating more responsive content. I have gained a much greater understanding of where to research to find the best information on design principles and been introduced to some of the key thinkers and books to read to improve my knowledge and keep improving.
I did find the start of the semester challenging, coming from college to University and the move to more independent and less guided learning. However, I feel I have grown and having to be more independent has pushed me to improve more and quicker than otherwise would have been the case. I am looking forward to second semester and the rest of the course now confident in the knowledge I have a solid base to build on.