Promoting the website

I feel that promoting the website is of great importance. I thought of a few ways that this could be done, the best two ways that I thought of was to either create an advertising campaign, or to create a brochure.

I chose to create a brochure because I thought that this would be the best solution due to the fact that people could easily pick this up and find out what the brand is all about. Inside the brochure features information about the brand to tell the audience all the information they need to know about the website, and how they get started.

Data input idea

I have been thinking of various different ways for the user to input their data on the website. This is an idea that I had. The idea is that there would be an image on the website that is cut into pieces (much like a puzzle). Within these pieces features the questions that the user will have to answer. The image of the pieces are covered up by the square box which will have the questions in them. Once the user has answered the question the piece of the image will be revealed.

My 8 day energy consumption

As part of an experiment I have decided to record data from the energy I use at home each day. I started off by taking photographs of the appliances that I use in the home.

By the end of the experiment I was left with the data that I wrote down each day to monitor what appliances that I used and how long I used them for.

Icons and colour

I decided to create a set of icons to apply to the site to help the use navigate around the site more easily. By using visual symbols like these ones catch the viewers eye and makes it easy for them to see what a specific element on the page is about. Also by using different colours for the icons helps the user identify each element on the page.

Testing the website

After completing the design of the website and getting it fully functioning, I decided to test the website on people to see if it works. I did this by using a new piece of technology called Snapz X Pro, that allows you to record anything that is being played on your computer screen. This enabled me to record the user's every move of the site, which could tell me how they found the interaction and the usability of the site. These are some of the recording that I took of people

Reminder system

I have been thinking of ways in which the brand will be able to help people reach their benchmark so that they will not be left on there own to reduce their energy and their emissions. One of these ideas is to have a reminding system that will remind people about their plan. This will be done by mobile phone. So the user will be able to choose how many times they would like to be reminded about their plan.

Sleep option

From my survey results I found out that people were forgetting to turn off appliances when they leave the room, or seem to be leaving them on for no reason when they are not using them. This also occured with recycling items, as people forgot to put them in the recycling bin.

My first solution to this was to design a set of stickers for people to place around the home. The stickers would have simple messages on them telling them to turn the appliances off. I thought of a new way in which this will work so that user’s don’t have to go around the house placing stickers.

The inspiration for this idea came from a piece of ineractive design that is found on an apple mac. Users of this computer are able to set their preferences on their computer. Within these preferences features a setting that is named “energy saver”. Within this setting one can adjust a tool

bar that puts the computer to sleep when they are inactive for a cetain amount of time. This is a unique idea and as it saves energy.

So the idea that I have thought of is to use this technology to apply to my website. The idea is to have a similar setting where users can choose when they would like to put appliances in their home to sleep when they are inactive for a certian period of time. There will be a slider tthat is features on the website so that users can choose when they would like to put the appliances to sleep when they are inactive. This idea is designed to help users reach their benchmark so that they are not simply left on their own having to meet their plan.

Bluetooth technology

After finding a way to monitor how much energy people use each day, at home and when they travel, I had to think of a way that they will be able to connect these devices to their computers to load up to the 'motive' website. This led me to look at technology that appears on an apple mac. This is of course bluetooth technology that allows you to upload devices such as a mouse or a keyboard etc to your computer. So I thought that by using bluetooth technology to upload peoples devices to the website would work well

Poke london (Website inspiration)

I have decided to look at some of the websites created by Poke in London, this is a web agency that produced web sites for really big clients. I wanted to see how the designs of there websites compare to the designs of my own website, so I can see what I am doing wrong or what I am doing well. These are some of the sites that I found inspiring and have learned quite a bit just by looking at them. The heirachy on each page is is really well presented as their is scale between each element that is on the page. This is something that I will be considering when designing my site.

Carbon calculator

Part of my idea is to monitor how much energy people use each day at home and when they travel. I came across a new piece of design creating by actonc02.com which allows you to calculate your carbon footprint. The only problem with this piece of design is that the user has to answer a series of questions that takes quite a while to find out their carbon footprint. Also I feel that this is not a very accurate way of doing this, as it does not measure on monitor anythin in your lifestyle.

Although my idea tells the users their carbon footprint. it will also tell them how there energy bill will be, and how many miles they have travelled. This will all be done accurately through new technology that allows you to monitor energy you use at home and how many miles you travel by car.

This PDF is a guide to climate designed by the Met Office. This PDF supplied me with most of the knowledge that I needed to know about what climate change is and how we are causing it. The PDF informs the viewer all they need to know about climate change. This is the document where I could draw statistics from to prove that their needs to be a piece of design that will encourage people to lower their carbon emissions, to help prevent the climate to change.

Click here to view the document

Self promotion

As part of this unit I am required to produce a set of materials to promote myself and my work as a designer. I have already created a website to do this, and I will also be working on creating a set of business cards to send to potential employers. I feel that promoting myself will be of great significance and a business card will be a nice piece of material to leave after an interview with a potential employer.

So I have decided to look for some inspiration on how the card could be designed, what materials it could be made from and also how it could be printed. These are some designs that I found inspiring. Promoting yourself is all about making yourself look unique and showing the employer what is special and different about you.

After researching to find different companies that I will be looking to get employed at, I have come across a potential web design company that looks very interesting. I like some of the work that the company produces and is exactly the type of design that I want to go into and the type of design my portfolio is based around.

This company is also positioned near where I live at home, so could be easy to travel too. This design agency is going down as one of the places to get in contact with to see if I can get my self a job.

Bournemouth or London?

I still don't know where I will be living next year which could prove to be a bit difficult with where to look for a job. I do know that I will be either living in Bournemouth or London so I will be looking at design agencies around these two areas.

My career path way

After spending over 5 years as a graphic designer, I now feel that I know the area of design that I am interested in finding a job, and I have designed my EMP to help me enter this area. I am interested in developing my knowledge and skills as a designer in either web design or branding. So I have decided to design my portfolio by including the projects that have consisted of creating websites and also my branding work. My EMP is based around these two areas of design.

Poke london

This is an award winning web agency that seeks perfection in web design. By looking at some of the websites that Poke have designed has made me realise that the hierarchy of a website is very important. I was being afraid of using large type on the page until I looked at some of the websites designed by Poke and realised that it would be fine to do so.

This is one of the top web design agencies in the UK that I have come across and to get my foot in the door would be a great achievement. Even if it was to gain some work experience, I would be more than happy to do so.

So aswell as drawing inspiration from the designs on the site, I also intend to peruse to get in touch with this company. So it's time to start getting my portfolio finished and ready to show potential employers.

The problem

I found many statistics about how the UK is causing climate change and how we are causing carbon emissions to rise etc. But these are the statistics that I felt were relevant to my project and even gave me an idea of what to focus on. I found quite a shocking statistic that states that 40% of the UK's man made C02 emissions come from energy we use everyday, at home and when we travel. This made me think on focusing on helping people improve on this aspect of there lifestyle.

Survey results

After conducting a survey I decided to visualise the questions that turned out to be helpful and relevant to my project. I found the results quite interesting as I found that 65 out of 70 people said that they think that they could do more to live a greener lifestyle. As I already had the idea of creating a reward scheme to encourage people to live a more sustainable lifestyle, I asked this question to people that I sent this survey out to.

After thinking of what content to put onto the homepage I started to create the first possible outcome for the site.

Promoting the site

There was various different way's that I could have promoted the site. The option that I chose to promote it was by designing a brochure so that people could simply pick it up and take it away with them to read.

Inside the brochure contained all of the information that people needed to know about the brand, this tells the audience what motive does, how it works etc. The brochure was designed using the same colours and style as the website, by using the brand identity across both pieces of media.