DSU Athletics

I looked at creating a new site for the DSU Athletics.  I am not the best at design but I thought we could ramp it up a little bit with some new logos and a little more updated.  I am using a centered approach as well as using the rule of thirds to bring it together.  I am still looking for a good background photo so as that the colors will work together and not be so different in contrast.  It is a pretty basic site but it allows you to see what is going on with each team and it will have a store to buy uniforms and other DSU gear at.  

Target Audience: DSU Students, Professors, and Alumni

We wanted to make a website to get more traffic.  The current website works well but I would say it can use a little more pizzaz and mostly different logos and fonts.  As you scroll through the website and visit each sport the background will change for each sport and provide information to that sport.  It will have an easier search guide to get through.  

The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan

Director: Christopher Nolan

Style:
Christopher Nolan has continuously used different elements, perspectives, and styles in his work.
 The Tree of Life (2011), Nolan spoke of Terrence Malick's work and how it has influenced his own approach to style:
"When you think of a visual style, when you think of the visual language of a film, there tends to be a natural separation of the visual style and the narrative elements. But with the greats, whether it's Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick or Hitchcock, what you're seeing is an inseparable, a vital relationship between the image and the story it's telling".  
Nolan is always using narrative and stylistic techniques to stimulate the viewers of his film.  He wants the audience to be provoked and ask why the films are put together in such ways.  Nolan will use the editing to better show the psychological states of the characters.  The protagonist(Heath Ledger) in all of his films is usually someone that is psychologically damaged.  They are usually driven this way and their fate is ambiguous. Nolan is really into conveying realism in the Dark Knight trilogy.  He used cinema-verite, which is when the movie is filmed to convey realism.  

Theme: 
In Nolan's movies his themes are usually existential or ethical.  In the Dark Knight Nolan explored the themes of chaos, terrorism, escalation of violence, financial manipulation, utilitarianism, mass surveillance, and class conflicts.  In the scene of the Joker's magic trick we experience pretty much all these themes in one scene.  Ledger's character as the Joker was a great performance and was so unreal at times.  Nolan was able to direct such a great movie because Ledger was literally making himself crazy by staying in character all the time.  

Such a scene can create wonder in the audience as to what would make any person be so crazy and do such radical things to get what he wants.  Nolan directed Ledger to be a great, crazy, insane, maniac of a character.  

Vision of a director

One of my favorite directors is Floria Sigismondi.  She is creative and has done great movies and films.  My favorite would be the music video she directed for Justin Timberlake called Mirrors.  It is creative and within the video there are great sequences, one of my favorite being the scene with Justin Timberlake dancing in a room/hall of mirrors.  It is creative and just something you can look at in more then one way.

Mirrors-Justin Timberlake

Picture Perfect

On my recent bike rides I have been into taking some amazing pictures of landscape around St. George. The red mountains, desert, and Pinevalley make for a great contrast in the picture.  I see the rule of thirds being used vertically and horizontally.  The big eye cather is where the red mountain starts on the left and guides you from left to right in the picture following the red hills line.  The blue sky ads for great negative space and overall it is one of my favorite pics I have taken.

This second pick was also taken on a recent bike ride on a trail called Paradise Rim.  It does not have much negative space the the color contrast between the red rock and the darkness and lightness of the storm rolling in really catch the eye.  This great picture was probably a lucky shot but I believe is shows a lot and provides great contrast and balance to the viewer.  I am able to look at the pictures and just see the beauty that surrounds us here in Southern Utah.

Axioms in Web Design

Panera Bread

As I looked around for a website and page that i enjoyed I had to go out of the original sites I used and look in new places.  I came upon Panera Bread and really like the features it provided.

Grid:
The Grid on Panera Bread is a great grid divided into an interactive introduction and then below is a three column approach.  In the spacing and grid layout it isn't always an even split between the different boxes but it provided a great look into the Panera Bread.

Design:
Other design features this websites provides is a great interactive image to guide your eyes through a great site. I don't feel like it really looks with a design guiding my eye from top left to the bottom right but I feel it has a great flow.  The intuitiveness is great on the site.  First time visitors will be able to guide themselves through the website and learn more about by simply using it.  It has a great aesthetic appeal and has a great main point of interest in the top of the page.  With all the colors and interactive features it is a great page, and it is also fun and easy to work with.

Font-astic

All of these different logos show great font use from some of my favorite sports sites.  "Grantland" and "Deadspin" are pretty basic but the color and fonts they have picked work really well together and create a good look for the websites they represent.  "The BS Report with Bill Simmons" is a great example of two fonts working together.  The letters "b" and "s" are in a bold font and red and really add contrast to the simple white writing in the rest of the title.  It works well and everything brings your eyes to the "BS" which is a great way to label yourself as a brand.  

Design: The Good and The Bad

As we have talked about design these last couple of weeks I have been looking through many design of different companies, artists, and designers.  Even today some designers can come up with some of the worst work I have seen, however many are great at what they do and provide a great design for a great product which in turn can most likely help the sell of the product.

Good Design:

Coven Vodka did a great job with design I believe.  They used a very simple design when you look at it in the light but by night is shows a great glow in the dark picture of some people.  The simplicity is great for daytime, and the glow in the dark night life brings great texture to the bottle that can be great for bars and clubs.  It can be seen in the dark making it visible to those in a the dark clubs and bars.  Another reason this is good packaging is it appeals more to the younger audience.

Bad Design:

With Stoutnik they had an alright design but it is a terrible design for beer, It has good texture and color but with beer drinkers they are not looking for a fancy bottle.  A more textured, colorful, and contrast are usually reserved for hard liquor.  The contrast is great from the background and lettering but not for the product it is trying to sell.

Harmony Contrast Balance and Baseball

The recurring theme seems to be baseball for me right now.   In baseball there can be so much to find when looking at contrast, balance, and harmony.  This is a picture of the knuckleball pitch being thrown by a pitcher.
The contrast in this picture of the the ball and hand to the blurry background of the grass make you focus more on the baseball and the grip around the baseball.  With the contrast comes a great balance with in the picture as well. I have tried many times to throw the knuckleball, but I have never been ever to fully get the pitch down.  It is a very hard pitch to master and those who are able to are set for a career as a pitcher in the MLB.  With all of these great aspects of the knuckleball combined create great harmony.   When a pitcher throws the knuckleball they need to be in harmony with their surroundings and need to be able to focus on the pitch and that is it.  I love sports and love baseball, and there is so much harmony contrast, and balance to find within the sport.

Visceral Response

Baseball is America past time and the Boston Red Sox are the most current World Series Champions.  In my eyes baseball is art.  The pitchers in baseball throw a 5 ounce ball 80-100 MPH with precision and technique, which most people cannot do.  Every time a sit down and watch baseball I am simply amazed with how much the ball moves with a single pitch and the power of both the pitcher and batter it most take to be good at what they do.
I wanted to pick more pictures to show but this one seemed to stick out in my eyes as simply beautiful.  First I will start with color.  The color in this pictures starts with the 4 white Red Sox jersey's.  The three standing up and the one who just slid into home plate for a very important run to help win the game.  With the contrast of the Umpire in black it is really something to look at, and even the background and environment colors are really intriguing to my eye.
Next there is the space involved within the picture.  All the players huddle around home plate and the fans in the background screaming and cheering for there home team.  We can also look at the form of all the players and umpires.  The three standing Red Sox Players and Umpire are all waving their hands in a safe motion.  While the player sliding into home is showing his excitement with his facial expressions after just scoring a run.  Then there is the lonely catcher who was doing everything he could to prevent the score but came up just short.  Adding the environment of the ballpark with its fans, green grass, and dirt I just have an emotion of excitement and what we called in class as being stupefying.
I see beauty and joy in every single pitch and every swing of the bat in baseball, but the most beauty I see come from baseball is in the heroic moments of scoring the game winning run and being the teammate that all the other players are cheering for haphazardly in the dugout and on the field.  This is pure stupefying to me.