OUGD504: Design for web, Website design and navigation research

My website is a biography on Shigeo Fukuda. His design was very simple but complex and he integrated illusion into his work, he was Japanese and loved swiss modernism. I'd like to highlight these points in my design, keeping everything minimal but giving it that quirky kind of edge which shows the ideas of Fukuda. I understand having a biography of an artists can be quite boring, having to trail through information, but if I design the website from an interesting perspective I believe I can challenge the conventional means of a biography website. I want to make it fun, but interesting, to keep everyone engaged.

Japanese and swiss modern style websites:

Source:
http://spyrestudios.com/44-beautiful-japanese-website-layouts/

"It is important to keep in mind that Japanese as a language can be used to convey information differently than English. You may notice slight variations to body text, navigation items, footer links, and other common pieces of webcopy. But these layouts are certainly worth a glance for anybody interested in studying the advancing trends in global web design."

http://kkzn.jp

http://www.kyoto-sjn.jp

http://codeprep.jp

http://keihonavi.jp

https://jypg.net

http://www.littleworld.jp

http://wallll.net

http://vanwijk.wix.com/carl-van

http://www.holographic.jp

http://www.canvas-cs.com

http://www.nabi-ya.com

http://www.pochiya.net

http://www.oki-islands.com

http://www.azami-km.com

http://www.the-vains.com

http://www.css-q.com

http://honchu.jp

http://www.akanean.com

http://cms.prego-design.com

http://www.nutskitchen.com

http://ok-lahhh.com

http://www.mutationsltd.com

http://www.hokusai.gr.jp

http://www.buil-biso.co.jp

http://www.ichizawa.co.jp

http://onsenjapan.jp

From analysing these Japanese websites I've noticed that a lot of them are very colourful, and the use of colour brings a lot of energy to the site. There's a mixture between illustration and photography, but both work really well. The sites are very clean, and although i can not read the Japanese language you can tell that they are very organised and every things labeled correctly. When I was on the sites it was really easy to navigate around them, most sites making use of the conventional navigation bar.

I believe you can be controversial, but you can easily make it look like you're trying to hard to be individual. I think I am going to keep with the conventional navigation bar, either along the bottom or the side, because trying to be different can make your work look very tacky.

I've also noticed that the navigation bars are never to big, which I think a lot of websites seem to do. Having a big navigation bar makes the page feel very clunky I think, so I'll stick to small, clean and neat navigation bars.

As for my website I think I should possibly add colour, but keep it to a minimum, maybe use red from the Japanese flag.

http://www.thetouchagency.co.uk

http://www.offscreenmag.com

http://www.wanda.net/uk

http://buy.alwaysreadthemanual.com

http://jonykrau.se

http://colorgrade.it

http://www.beckindesign.com

http://www.jcsuzanne.com

http://manualcreative.com

http://churchmedia.com

http://www.studioairport.nl/#!/artikelen/profiel/

http://foodsense.is

http://www.assemblyltd.com

http://www.gftd.co

http://activearkjwt.com

http://zync.ca

http://www.aquiesdonde.com.ar/?lang=en

http://kyan.com

http://presentplus.com

http://www.helloberryinc.com/index.php

http://www.lastbottlewines.com

http://www.percivalclo.com

http://happycog.com

From looking at these minimal modernist sites I've noticed that there's a theme running with colour. A lot of the websites are very bright and there's a big use of white, blacks and greys. A lot of the sites again use minimal colour, but where it is used it's very effective.

There's a lot of clean lines, sharp photography, detailed illustration and it real brings out the high quality and professionalism in the sites. Nothings to big and clunky, and when navigation around the different sites, they all flows very easily and are easy to make sense of. Some of the sites are very centred, which I think adds to the neat and clean aesthetic, something which I will definitely consider.

Big, bold, san serif gothic text is used quite regularly, keeping to the almost swiss modernist agenda. I think big text works as it makes an impact but it also adds to the aesthetic, almost like an image.

I found this website which shows 20 hottest website design trends of 2013:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/web-design-trend-2013/

1. Responsive Layouts
2. Retina Support
3. Fixed Header Bars
4. Large Photo Backgrounds
5. CSS Transparency
6. Minimalist Landing Pages
7. Digital QR Codes
8. Social Media Badges
9. Detailed Illustrations
10. Infinite Scrolling
11. Homepage Feature Tours
12. Sliding Webpage Panels
13. Mobile Navigation Toggle
14. Fullscreen Typography
15. APIs And Open Source
16. Deep Box Shadows
17. CSS3 Animations
18. Vertical Navigation
19. Single-Page Web Design
20. Circular Design Elements

These trends could be things to consider when designing my website.

My website needs at least five pages, but I'm a little unsure on what some of the pages are going to be. I'm going to look at websites which may be similar to my sight, and see where I can go from this.

I've started by looking at biography websites and at the navigation bars to see what pages they include.

http://www.davidgilmour.com/biography.htm