Evaluation:
As an overall i feel that i could have created a better looking more visually pleasing website portfolio. However taking into consideration my struggles with the software i do feel that i overcame a lot of problems and resolved them to as best as i could. With 5 weeks to complete the project i had to divide my time into; planning, designing and creating a website. I had no previous experience with creating a website so i did find it probably my biggest challenge yet. My 5 page website i feel is done to a level where it is visually and aesthetically pleasing, of course there is room for development and with a longer time period I’m sure I could improve on my website.
I found the planning process quite simple. The way that i plan is to draw inspiration from other works which I usually find online. I drew out some sketches so that i had my visual ideas in rough on paper and I worked around them. As ive previously said im not the best with using Dreamweaver, far from it, but admittedly i will put my all into creating a piece of work to a decent level, hopefully a good level. As i knew that my skills with Dreamweaver would prove to be a task – as they did, i tried to emphasise extra effort with the use of Photoshop as ive had plenty of experience with the software and i know my way around it. I tried to incorporate some professional looking images which i hoped would set the standard for my website. This was an element to the project which i felt i had no problem at all with. For my homepage i had the idea to use my most powerful images to engage viewers and keep them browsing through my site, this was a process used in Dreamweaver which i found most easy to create with the use of Bridge. When it comes to image quality i think i did well in terms of quality and display.
However, I do think that the text on my website could have been explored more and made to look more creative. I did try and experiment with my “About Me” page, in which I altered my text on Photoshop to add a different look as opposed to the matching style of my other four pages. This was an element which I decided to alter towards the end of the 5 week project, all 5 pages with the same text began to grate on me as I thought that my users would find it boring to keep looking at and eventually lose interest. With more time i would most definitely like to expand on my use of typography.
The most daunting experience throughout this project for me was using Dreamweaver. I found the whole concept of CSS rules and HTML quite complex and i had difficulty with keeping up to the pace which was needed. However i did manage to achieve some rules with html such as my links to Facebook and Twitter, this was a HTML aspect which i actually found very easy. One difficulty i did have was the composition of the text and images on one page, i always had trouble with the alignment although when I added in floatright, margins and padding i was able to adjust these aspects.
Overall i found this project quite daunting but with a lot of effort and patience with the use of Dreamweaver i feel that i have made a website to a standard that is good for a first time user! I would like to take some time to work on my website but nevertheless i am proud of my accomplishment with the website and using the Dreamweaver software itself.
