Evaluation

For my capture project I made a website called Manga Sketch, a website dedicated to manga/anime style art and tutorials for it. First I looked at existing websites that provide what I wanted my website to provide. The two main websites I looked at were DevianART and Manga Tutorials, they gave me lots of idea’s oh how to effectively make the kind of website I was making. I them moved on to making a plan in photoshop and then the base’s for the pages. I then started on my mascots, one on paper and one in a program in paint tool sai with the use of my drawing tablet. I then animated these in flash on the enter page. Finally to complete my project I made all the links and scrollbars in flash.

I think the effects on my buttons and my artwork worked best in my website, especially the ones on the enter page. I think that it just made the website less boring and gave my website a better visual look in general. It also helped you get the feel of the website as well as giving the site some individuality.

In future projects I will use all the information I have learned from making this website, especially about buttons and layers and the scroll bar. I will defiantly be using the scroll bar again as I think it’s a really effective tool and helps with keeping the page clutter-free. I also will use my knowledge of layers again as it just makes the whole process easier, especially with the ability to lock layers your working on so you don’t select things you shouldn’t. As for buttons, I think I will defiantly use them again, especially with the different things you can change on ‘up’ ‘over’ ‘down’ and ‘hit’.

My research really helped me work out what looks good and what looks bad on a website, it helped me change some of my plans like how I was going to have music on the site but I know now that most people find this really annoying and that if there isn’t a visible mute sign they may even leave your web page.  My other research wasn’t really that helpful though.

If I had to do this again I would have more images of the mascots and I’d try making the background images for the traditional and digital pages more interesting, for example doodles on the traditional background and more shine and shadows on he digital background to make it look more modern.

All in all I’m proud of my website even if it could do with a bit more work. I have also learnt a lot about how to work flash and photoshop through this project, hopefully the techniques I have learnt will stay with me and make me a better website designer and improve my skills in general.