Red Eye Design

As a design student I find it interesting to stumble upon design websites.  For some reason I favor the ones that are based or located in the Philadelphia area, possible because I want to know what's going on around me design wise and what kind of projects and work is being produced in Philadelphia.

Redeye design (www.designredeye.com) is a freelance creative agency in the Philadelphia area that produces graphic design, print and production services from logos to web design.   Founder Lynnette Shelley who is an artist and designer likes to provide professional and affordable services to any type of companies and organizations.

On the top of the home page there is a main graphic with the agency’s title with a navigation bar that has six choices that will navigate you to six different parts of the website (Home, Clients, Design Portfolio, Artwork, Blog, Contact).  Those six links seem to be equally primary links of the website and they stay in the same place you navigate through other web pages on the site.  The site is well organized because the layout design is pretty simple and clear, and the same layout is used throughout the site.

I can tell that this site has a good amount of pages within it because there in the texts of the web pages there are links that will take you to more information about a specific project, person or company they the agency has worked on or with.  

I like how they work with numerous and adverse companies and produce very original and creative work.  With the type it looks like they are consistently using an 11 pt Verdana font for the body text.  One of the words that are different than the body text is the main title of “Redeye design” which has is own simple design to it with the “red” part of the word in a red font color and the e’s in “eye” kind of look like eyes.   The title of the agency is also the biggest size because it is most important.  The titles of the specific web page is also bigger than the body text and the text on the navigation bar. 

The grid structure of the site is pretty simple and consistent; the layout of each page has the title and dragon graphic at the top with the navigation bar under it.  Under the navigation bar is the subtitle of the specific web page aligned left with the body text underneath it.  On the right side of the page are more information relation to the page with links, featured projects, contacts and sometimes testimonials and comments that change along with the body text and subtitles of each webpage.

The title of the agency and graphically illustrated dragon with a textured background is the focal point of all of the web pages through the website so there is never any confusion if you’re still on the website or not.  This takes up roughly 3 inches onscreen and is brightly colored in different shades yellow, red and some black.  Under the design portfolio two columns and numerous rows of their projects and work their agency has produced for other companies showing their abilities.  Other than that specific webpage there aren’t many other photos of visual aids that are on the pages.  I think it would be better if they did add a little more visual aids to more of their web pages so their isn’t just body texts with bullets.
  

As stated before the color palette they chose for the site are different shades yellow, orange, red and some black.  Those colors are used mostly in the dragon graphic; but only the red is incorporated in the text.  It looks like those colors were specifically chosen for this for this site because they are very inviting and lively.  

ABC Website

Abc is a tv network that is known for their daytime soap operas, evening news and nighttime television shows.  There are two different websites that abc has; one is a website for news (abcnews.go.com) and the other is a website for their television shows (abc.go.com).

The abc website primarily uses the colors red, white and black; with the exceptions of the pictures, the main titles of their tv shows and the flash videos.  The colors white and black are from the abc logo and it seems like red it the compliment color of the two.  On the abc.go.com website there are many navigation systems throughout out the website. The main bar at the top covers the nighttime shows, schedule and episodes that you can stream and watch online.

On the main page there are also navigation links that take you to the premier shows that have been played the day before, are playing the day of or will be playing the day after. When navigation throughout the website the main bar stays the same so you can go through other links and pages and access everything as if still on the main page.  Once you click on a link and visit that page the link doesn’t change, but I do prefer when I know if I have visited specific links. 

This site seems to have more flash videos, pictures and brief descriptions more that full-page articles and stories, but the pages they do have are filled with those flash videos and there are many pages within the pages. The type that is used throughout the website is Arial and the titles and important headings they either bold, highlight or have different font colors than the body text which is usually in black or white. The more important headings are also justified left and the body text are more centered and sometimes with smaller font sizes. 

The grid structure in the website is pretty apparent throughout it; on majority of the pages there is the main navigation bar at the top with a flash player or pictures`` right under the bar.  Under those there are usually one or two columns of text with brief descriptions or pictures to view the shows on the left side of the page and on the right side there are ads about abc and some sponsored ads that are not.  The pages that are not like that are usually like that usually have a list of the shows or episodes or pictures or videos of those specific shows all laid out in grid structure.  Usually thy focal point of all the webpage’s in the website is the main navigation bar with the abc logo with the links to the shows, schedules and episodes you can stream and watch online.  

Throughout this websites there are alot of pictures and flash videos everywhere. Even though there are alot of those flash videos and pictures everywhere somehow abc still keeps all the webpages clean and easy to work around.  Each webpage that is about a different show that webpage is like a different website but still has the abc website characteristics like the grid structure and content.

The abc website is for mostly entertainment; you can keep up with your favorite abc shows and characters within the shows.  There are blogs, and vide blogs about the main characters of most of the shows and the ability to watch episodes you missed or the opportunity to preview the next weeks episode.