I have now finished my studies at Noroff. The last 6 weeks I had an internship, which I recommend warmly. Thank you, Noroff, for all that I have learned, and keep up the good work, students. :)
Karin
LA Week 30: Building a Mobile-Friendly Website
Write a detailed brief. (You may use a real client or a fictional one.)
Use the information from the brief to build a wireframe for the website.
Choose a WordPress theme for the website.
Customise the WordPress theme to fulfil the specific needs of the client.
Make sure that the site works on both desktop and mobile devices. (It does not have to work perfectly, but I want to see that you have considered it.)Upload your brief, wireframe and website to your WordPress blog.
I choose to use my client from week 27, NLM Bodø. Click on the link, and you will see the brief and wireframe. I used the wordpress theme Simone, and followed a Lynda-course to create an one-page style front page, and customized to my client’s needs. I don’t have the passwords to upload it to their domene, but it will come soon. :) In the meantime, here is a couple of screenshots:
Full width
Mobile width
Week 30: LA – Applying for Jobs
Publish a résumé and covering email as if you were applying to work at a real company.
Ideally you would also provide a portfolio website, but this will be completed over the next couple of weeks, so don’t worry about that now.
Here is my resume. I tried to keep it clean and simple, and used typography ang grids carefully instead of a lot of color and stuff. I will probably change some text when I start applying for jobs.
Do you have any feedback? :)
Week 29: LA – Building a Website From Start to Finish
Write a detailed brief for your website.
Create a wireframe according to the brief.
Draw some sketches to plan your design.
Build a working websites according to these specs.
It’s important for me to see that you can follow through on the entire process – from the brief to the completed website. Please explain why you make certain decisions. How do these decisions fit in with the business strategy?
Upload your brief, wireframe, sketches and link to your website to your WordPress blog. There’s quite a lot to do for this assignment, so it’s advisable to keep your website simple.
I decided to create a simple static website for a company Misværgeita. I am designing a visual identity for them, so I want to create a website for the launch of the new identity.
Brief
What is the client’s service/product?
Misværgeita is a small family-company who makes products of goat milk and meat, after old recipies.
The products are sausages, salad cheese and «gomme».
What are their requirements?
The webside should be static since we are not going to update it very often. It will be like a digitally business card. The site should be fresh, friendly and bright.
It should contain contact information, an «about us» section and short information about the products.
What is the website’s goal?
The goals are:
To market the launch
To provide information about the products
To greate awareness of the new brand
How are you going to achieve this goal?
We will achieve the goals by making a simple but engaging website with just enough information, make sure it is SEO friendly and has a good and appealing design.
It is important that the site is being shared in social media so that people can see it.
What is the design style that will be required?
Simple & Mobile friendly
What are your suggestions for marketing the site?
Use facebook, and share the site.
Wireframe
Sketches
Here is the website. It is not finished yet, and it is not browser tested, mobile optimized or anything. The logo is a placeholder logo that I threw together in Photoshop since I haven’t finished it yet. But you get the idea, and I will probably work more on it later on.
Week 28: Learning Activity – Coming Up With a Strategy
Set up a meeting with a business owner and ask him/her what he/she would want from a website. Also ask him/her what the business strategy is and how the website would fit into it.
Then write a detailed document about this.
Brief:
What is the client’s service/product?
My client for this task is an hobby inventor who is just starting out. He invents mainly electronics that should ease the daily life, and want a website to share his inventions.
What are their requirements?
He wants a freshand simple website based on WordPress. It should contain contact information, a static front page that showcases his latest inventions. The invention posts should have a blog-functionality.
What is the website’s goal?
- The website should become an archive with inventions.
- It should spread the info to the world.
- He wants it to be place to connect with the audience, where they can suggest new ideas, and have a two-ways communication.
How are you going to achieve this goal?
- He wants to write about what he makes, and put finished projects in a portfolio.
- He will make how-to videos and interesting blog posts.
- The posts need to have a function where people can comment and discuss.
What is the design style that will be required?
Fresh and simple. No useless decorations, but the content should be in focus.
What are your suggestions for marketing the site?
Facebook for friends, Instructables, Youtube channel. Go viral!
Strategy:
He wants to go from being an unknown amateur to make a living from his hobby.
How:
- To create small and smart inventions that can do big tasks.
- It is a hobby, and he expects that he will get few jobs in the beginning and more and more as he builds his reputation and portfolio.
- He will attend techno exposes to show his work.
- He will not pay for PR, but make invite media on a «studio tour» etc, and people share his articles via social media.
I would like you to use the information from this document and create a website architecture.
Now let’s focus on the web design strategy. Your document should justify all the major decisions you make – from the domain registration, hosting, design and target audience through to what you decide in terms of programming.
Web design strategy:
Domain registration: He will write in english and target people from other contries as well as Norway, so I suggest that he choose an international name for the website with a international top-level domain like .com. He haven’t come up with a name yet, so there are many possibilities. He should also buy .no since he is norwegian.
Hosting: one.com is a good host with little downtime, good support, simple UI and a nice price. It works very good for a simple portfolio/blog function. I am also used to this system and I like it very much.
CMS: I suggest we use WordPress for the content management. I am used to work with this and it has almost endless possibilities, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get the functionality we needs. It is easy to use even if you don’t have much experience with blogging and the back-end of websites.
Coding: It should be clean and easy to update. I suggest that we find a wordpress theme that we can make our own with a child theme. In that way we get the updates and security from the parent theme and the style we want from the child theme. It will also make the site cheaper to make than creating a wordpress theme from scratch.
Design: Fresh and simple. Very easy and intuitive where to click and what you will find there. Lots of white space. No advertising, but with possibilities to add it if he gets sponsors.
Target audience:
1: People, men, age 30-40 that wants a simple solution to a problem they have. They are not into technically stuff, but have family or tasks in life that they would like to be done in an easier way.
2: Men, 25-35 years old. They live all over the world. They are interested in technology and electronics, are creative in their own kind of ways. They are not sport types but more interested in gaming, computers etc.
The Reflected Journal 