Sean Brech Post No. 9

I chose to do my interface project for A Very Special Place, Inc. This non-profit organization is based out of New York City, primarily Staten Island, and works with members of the mentally disabled community and their families in providing opportunities and resources. They offer programs such as cooking, athletics, and arts and crafts as well as providing housing for those members who need it. My target audience for this website is mainly the family and friends of those with a mental disability. My design strategy for this website was to keep it basic with a central color kept throughout the entire site. I kept the original sites masthead and logo. The original site used too much color to the extent that it was becoming distracting from the content. Their original website content also used too many run-on sentences, often taking up the equivalent of two pages. I decided to edit down their content to the bare necessities.

      

Roxanne Hesh: Post No. 9

I remade the website for the organization known as H.O.M.E. (Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Economics). The target audience are domestic workers in Singapore and those interested in helping the cause. I chose to remake the website because it was crowded and filled with unnecessary navigation tools. My goal was to fix the errors by maintaining a simplicity and user-friendliness throughout. I did this by creating one main navigation bar across the top that remains constant on every page. Although it is the only navigation bar, I created clickable links throughout the website to add more personality. I tried to maintain the same look and set up on every page, just differentiating each page by the content. For the font, I chose Myriad Pro because it was one of the fonts Darren told us Google detects and reads. The point of my website is to be seen, so I wanted all of the content to be traceable by Google so the website would show up when searched for. Lastly, the colors used through out the website were chosen based on the colors used in the organizations logo.

Marwa Eltagouri: Post No. 9

 

The website I chose to redesign was that of the Business of Art Center in Manitou Springs, CO. which aims to develop the artistic and business skills of artists by giving them studio space and business skills, so I thought their website should be innovative and artistic. The original website has a very poor design, and so my main obstacle was to fix it. The original design consists of a staggered collage of brightly colored text within brightly colored boxes, with no color coordination or organization whatsoever.

My redesign therefore focuses on cleanliness and simplicity, appealing to the business side of art. I wanted to reflect the open, spacious feel of an art gallery in my website, by using white space, sleek typefaces, and image organization.  It allows audiences of any background to realize the importance of the arts through visuals, motivating them to donate. The home page consists of a large visual of a welcoming studio space, and subpages incorporate images of people and artwork taken from the website, helping establish a friendly connection with the audience. My design is organized by color as well – focusing on burgundy and black (which corresponds the photo on the home page), with teal links. Consistency in color, especially regarding links, allows for easier usability in that the viewer can tell what is clickable and what is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Devon Braunstein: Post No. 9

Theater for the New City (TNC) is a not-for-profit theatrical organization that produces plays and hosts events. Many of the productions are written by emerging young playwrights or multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies without a permanent home. TNC aims to encourage future theater artists from low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and engaging the community with theater through free festivals. It has won several awards lauding its high-quality productions. My target audience is general city-goers of New York who support the program by attending and funding the shows and events, in addition to emerging young playwrights and residents in lower-income communities. I used the bold red curtains against a black background to portray the organization’s professionalism and reflect its high-quality productions. The darkness against the curtains gives off a nightlife ambience to associate the website with a NYC theater event. I didn’t want to make it too fancy because of the rawness and uniqueness that the individual playwrights bring to the table, as they come from all different diverse backgrounds. The white type on black background creates clarity in my design while keeping it simple enough to not scare away up and coming playwrights who may not yet be aware of the extent of their talents.

Caroline Castro: Post No. 9

  

   

This is my website design. The organization I chose is a non-profit that  promotes training people in wilderness and survival skills and sustainable living techniques. The target audience is anyone looking to expand their knowledge on living closer to the Earth and treating nature with more care and respect. Their website was not the worst of websites, but I felt it had too much repeated information that could easily be condensed. As well, they had plenty of great photos throughout the website, however none were placed in a way that created a response from the viewer–most were either too small or in obscure places throughout the site. All the photos I used were their own except for the mountain range at the bottom.  I chose a blue sky background to keep the nature theme strong and used earth tones as my main color scheme. I chose the font used in the word mark because I felt it made their name more distinctive. It also looks like tree branches bent into letters a little bit. Anyway, this is what I came up with, hope you like!

Peace,

C

Brian Grove: Post No. 9

The Westcott Community Center is a non-profit organization that aims to build community bonding around Westcott Street by organizing events designed to bring the diverse community together. The group is focused on a very small area and offers a variety of programs to get people from the community out of their homes and interacting with one another to share their cultures, beliefs and values. Bringing the diverse community together is their primary goal. My target market is obviously people of the community, but beyond that I decided to make my website basic and simple in order to work for everyone, including those who are not as technologically savvy as us college students. I didn’t feel that including social media or other complicated links was entirely necessary because the Westcott area does not strike the bystander as one that is technologically driven, but instead grown a unique history. My design strategy was to incorporate the bricks that the original website loved so much but toned down significantly in color. The original website had both a horizontal and vertical navigation bar which I felt made the page very cluttered and unnecesary when all the user needed is to see information/dates/contact info.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelsey Capobianco: Post No. 9

Rebuild Worcester Together is a division of a large chain of nonprofits that are geared at rebuilding the community. The organization gathers volunteers from the surrounding area to work alongside skilled tradesmen to make a difference in people’s lives; especially families with children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. This organization is all about lending a helping hand. My target audience consisted of people who want to help their community. This is a very broad selection to work with, so I chose to use pale blue for the back. I consider this color to be very neural for anyone who would come across this page. I also chose to make the color scheme consistent with the logo opposed to all black and white, like the original website. My design strategy was to use bright colors and a simple design to appeal to the younger generations. It’s important because they will be the one’s who will be helping the community in the years to come, so they should be aware of the opportunities they have to help people in their own neighborhood. The font is sturdy yet pleasant, keeping people at ease when they view the site. It’s simple yet effective.

 

Heidi Chu: Post No. 9

My organization was the Juneau Raptor Center, which is a local non-profit located in Alaska. It is dedicated to the well-being of all birds and provides aid and treatment to birds that are injured or sick. My target audience was a large range from bird-lovers to high school volunteers. There were several reasons why any person would’ve entered this site. Some reasons would have been to find out more about the organization, learn ways to volunteer, or to learn more about birds for personal research. Since this site offered such varieties of information, I wanted to create a design that allowed the user to easily navigate through the website and to find the information and answer he/she was looking for. The original site only had hyperlinked text for navigation, but I wanted to add graphically pleasing links to guide the user. Lastly, I used typefaces that were easy to read.

Lauren Duda: Post No. 9

For my website, I chose to redesign a local Syracuse non-profit’s website. The organization is called Home HeadQuarters, and it is an organization that covers all of people’s housing needs. They do everything from helping first time buyers in getting loans, to aiding people in avoiding home foreclosure. The range of services is very diverse, which is reflected in the numerous sections on its website. When designing my website, the target audience I had in mind was pretty much any homeowner in the Syracuse area. This is why I used Syracuse colors in my design–to grab their attention and make them feel right at home. I also really wanted to organize the huge amount of information on the original website into a format that users could easily understand and navigate. This is why on my secondary pages I have a main section for the body text and a side section solely dedicated to useful links. Another part of my design strategy was that I wanted to make it feel like buying a house is not as daunting of a task as it may seem, so I used a playful title font in order to create that feel.

LD

Maddy Berner–Post No. 9

For my interface project, I chose the Arlington Food Assistance Center. This organization, centralized in Arlington, Virginia, provides healthy food and groceries for those who can’t afford it themselves. They have a special building where people can pick up food but also use schools and churches to hold food drives and give out groceries. Its original website, while nice, was extremely cluttered and filled with too much text. The multiple graphics were also distracting to the eye. For my new design, I tried to cater to the target audience of those living below the poverty line. Some of these people don’t have a college education or just don’t have the time to read through so much stuff to get to the basics. So, my design strategy was to simplify the website and put the important information first. For those in need of food, a few clicks will get them right to the vital stuff, no scrolling around involved. For those wanting to help out, the sub navigation to the left organizes all the sources easily and is more aesthetically pleasing. I think the use of white space as well as the typeface help create a more modern website that will be easy for someone of any age, race or education level to maneuver around.