My ideas for the site started off with mind maps of things that I liked, such as Japanese festival style, animals, mythology etc. I love the concept of Japanese festivals, the way they are presented in media, and the dresses (called a Yukata) that they wear. But after consideration, I discarded that idea, and arrived to animals. I liked animals, and I thought spicing it up with mythology would be a good alternative than just normal animals, since this was a project for a website only. After circling through all of the options available, like festivals and shows, I decided on a Museum theme for my website. So my website would be a Mythological Animal Museum.
After I finished the mind mapping, I drew a physical representation of the place to help me envision the website. I drew several colour versions of the site before I settled on a design that fit the concept for me. It is a building that looks slightly menacing, but also grand at the same time, and that is the feeling for the concept that I am going for. I tried several different colour schemes, but different shades of brown worked the best.
I may do sketches of the interior further down the track, but I have a photo collection moodboard for that now that represents it. The interior is mostly wood, filled with warm colours to give off a warm and welcoming atmosphere. after completing the moodboard, I then set to work trying to do a site map, and organised all the functions that a museum would have, such as a research explanation page, collections showing at the museum, exhibitions that are on and what special events they would have on now. I had several museum websites for inspiration, such as the Smithsonian Museums, Australian Museum and Natural History Museum (UK).
I also noted that there were varying logos for the museums, such as the Smithsonian’s Yellow Sun on a Cyan Blue circle background or the Natural History Museums logo, which is just an uppercase ‘N’. I used these Websites as references for creating my logo for my own museum, as well as others, such as the font of the Monster Hunter series. I tried many variations on the logo and still haven’t settled on one yet. The teacher also saw my logo that I made and asked me to create as many variations as possible. I also gained inspiration for logos from the video lectures in week 9.
The site map was tricky to figure out, because I had to sort all of the segments of a museum and see if they would fit under a certain navigation field. I also had to limit the number of site map headings, as they were getting too convoluted. I had to narrow the categories down to save time and effort when I’m doing the actual pages.
Amely Koenig's Blog and Art 