Blog

The first website which I am reviewing is Power City. Power City is an Irish electrical retailer, and on their website, they provide customers with the products they have available. In terms of its design, I feel that the design is very much outdated. The selection of sections at the top is quite dull to look at and needs more use of graphics and colour. The use of colours is poorly displayed here too. The main colours are white and black, almost using the default colours. There is also a disappointing use of white space. The pages look empty and cluttered, particularly the home page. The white space is not well used to single out items on the page.

A positive is that the site is responsive to different screen sizes but there are still issues regarding the placement of text along the edges of the smaller screen sizes. I think overall the site could do with a major update, separating the items on the page and give it a better hierarchy so users can easily distinguish between the different elements on the website. At present, it is awkward to look at and is not very appealing when compared with other electrical services online such as Komplett and DID. Power City must try to convey the brand's identity with the design as well as making it more friendly and usable for potential customers.

For this section, I wanted to redesign an existing website and create a new look using the Figma Prototype Tool. The tool allows users to create prototype versions of digital platforms, such as websites or mobile applications. I wanted to find a website that I felt could do with an upgrade and I found one in Iowa City Veterinarians. I thought the design was very backward or old fashioned considering the digital times we are living in. The prototype version that I created for this website can be found here. I wanted it to look bright and provide somewhat warm feeling to it, trying to get an important impression on users that visit the site. I feel the existing site does not offer confidence to users and may direct them to other vets in the area. Its vital that service shows that they are a serious about the welfare of animals and that owners can trust them to deliver the correct care for their pet.

The following is a list of little tutorials that I found browsing the internet and thought would be useful to looked at. The tutorial is from Codrops. This tutorial shows buttons and when clicked on, show an ON or OFF state. The tutorial explained 4 button types created and I have implemented them below following the instructions given on the codrops page.

One of the most prominent trends on websites in the last few years is the use of SVGs. SVGs are not a recent development, it has been around since 2001. It stands for scalable vector graphics. These are graphics that when scaled or zoomed in or out, maintain the same quality. Now that websites are becoming more interactive and mobile responsive, the use of SVGs within this area has many benefits. Instead of creating numerous sizes for PNGs for instance, the use of a single SVG can overcome this issue, allowing for a simple and effective process.

SVGs are usually quite small in size in terms of memory. They can also be edited using CSS, changing attributes of the design, such as colour or border styles. As SVG uses XML technology in their makeup, this allows for CSS to be implemented with an SVG file. As 2021 continues, the further introduction of SVGs is bound to increase and may become that standard for graphics on the web in the future overtaking PNGs as the primary image format to be used on the web.

Welcome to my Portfolio site. Here you can find all the relevant information about myself as a graphic and web designer. The small site showcases some of my work and contains a blog page that documents various aspects relating to web design. This blog talks about areas I feel are important topics to be discussed as well as showing my experience about the industry.