Website Research

In this project I must create a consistent visual style across my products so I decided to look into existing website that interested me visually to get inspiration about what direction I want to take my site it. 

The first website I looked at was a site for an illustrator which I really liked as it was clean and professional but also very visual. The white space on the site is used really well and emphasis the elements on the page really well and the slight textures on this give it a nice visual element.  The simple black and white colour scheme works really well and colour is added by the imagery on the pages. The red at the top stands out and this colour is also used for the hover effects which is clear and effective, the design of the site is really good in my opinion. The lines which go above and below the navigation and title break these elements up really well and visually separate them from the content below, this is definitely an idea I will look at when designing the visual style of my site. The colour scheme is not something that would fit my site but making the background of the content transparent so goes in the main background of the site would be a something to look at. 
Link - http://www.circografico.com.ar

Main Content

Footer

I was already thinking of using an image image slider for the home page of my site for a few reasons so the next site caught my eye as it was a different look and style to the other image sliders I had seen and pictured in my head, as well as this the overall site had a really good look.

The image take up the whole width of the page which I think could work for my subject as the grand canyon has some great imagery to go with it. The slider also has arrows to skip to the next image and a caption box to with it in the bottom left both of which i think are great little additions which would help the suer on the site. The skip button could mean they could move between the images at the own speed rather than waiting for the images to skip themselves and the caption help inform the user and make sure they know what they are looking at. If I do use an image slider on my site then looking at this as an option would be a good idea. 

the rest of the site also works well in my opinion the header and navigation fit into the top of the site really well and the colour change separates them form the rest of the site well on top of this they are spaced really well and look professional. The content below the image slider is in a three column layout which gives the website a good structure and layout. 

Mobile

Another bonus of looking at this site is that it is responsive which helped me get some idea about how to treat and image slider when going responsive. The website abandons the slider at the tablet and mobile breakpoints and goes two column at tablet size and one column at mobile breakpoint. The navigation also works well in the different breakpoints first reducing the space but staying horizontal on the tablet, and goes vertical for mobile. It works really well and flows between the breakpoints really well. And the image slider is sacrificed for this which in the hierarchy of the page made sense for the designer. 
Link - http://trufcreative.com

Tablet