Another Update - Via Vid.

Here's a wrap up for the night. Enjoy the bad (very bad - but funny)...and the good :-)


The Bad...





The Good...




Can't you just see why were such an amazing team??!! So much love and team spirit! and this is what leads us to work so well together. :-)

Updated Designs + Site Map

Hey,

So these are our changed designs for the website, which we are happy with and think will work a lot better than our previous ones. They allow for more informative content and the whole thing links together a lot better. We have sent them off to Kay so will just wait for her final approval before we go ahead with them.

Also Kay requested a few changes to the site map which we have made, so here is the amended version:

Kylea & Liz - Being Geeks

We L O V E our video blogs.


Slightly unaware that we had the video on. Thought it might be good entertainment for you all :-)





And here's Kylea & I giving you a wee update about our process and what were up to.

Tuesdays Meeting with Anthea

We met up with Anthea again at Terabyte this week, she gave us some very valuable input into our website designs. She explained to us that the large image rotator on the home-page was not going to work quite right, as the home-page is what draws in the viewer and therefore needed more visible content instead. She even did this wonderful page of sketches as examples:

So Liz and I are currently making the changes to the designs so we can pass them over to Cam tomorrow :)

We also showed Anthea the awesome 3D tile slider game that Cam has made for the website!

Mondays meeting with Kay

So on Monday Liz and myself went to the museum to visit Kay and show her what we have been up to....

First up we showed her the website design's we had done, which she really liked. We basically explained how everything was going to work and went over the layout. We talked about the site-map and the content we would require from her. There were some changes she wanted to add to the site-map such as adding in a separate archives bar in the main navigation.

We then went over our logo developments, she let us know what aspects she liked and got a second opinion from Sandy the next day, so now we are pretty confident in where we are heading with that.

We did a basic workshop with Kay on how to use mailchimp (online email newsletter). She really liked the idea and now has a good knowledge of the resource. We will be creating a manual for her just in case she gets stuck with it.

We also wanted to check that she knew how to resize photos and we were happy to learn that she does, she has photoshop on her computer for that.

The last thing we talked about was the idea we had about connecting the museum with the rest of the Papakura community. The plan is to write letters to local business's asking for there support, this could be as simple as letting the museum put up posters in there windows to promote the museum, and in return the business would be featured on the museum's website as sponsoring a feature object.

We also have a video from the museum which will be uploaded very soon :)

Logo Development - Experimenting...

Tonight we worked on the imagery part of the logo; mainly experimenting with the style of illustration. Due to the layout of the logo were developing, we have chosen to use footprints, a chain and a flax weave as the images to represent the Museum (this imagery was indicated to us by Kay & Sandy at the Museum). Each image represents a different aspect that is very important to the museum; which is why to want to find the most suitable and professional way to illustrate them.

Here are a few examples of some different illustration styles that we are planning to present to the Museum tomorrow (at our next meeting).

We had a bit of fun playing with paint (trying to get a different texture). Kylea was the lucky one to get her feet painted!!!

And here's a short vid' to sum up our night :-)

Web Design Templates

So as well as working on the logo we have also been working on the website design,

After hearing Kays feedback on the wire frame templates we were able to start designing,

so here are the five design templates we came up with:

Tomorrow we are going to see Kay, so she will give us her feedback on the designs and any changes she might like :)

MailChimp

One of the creative requirements in our brief is to create an email newsletter for our client.

We want it to be as easy an maintenance free as possible for our client, so its great we were told about mailchimp - an online resource for email newsletters. They provide the design templates, you add the images and text you want, and they are ready to send!

It is free to send up to 600 emails a month, and you can create different lists of subscribers for different newsletters.

We will be putting a subscribe form on the museum's website, and the great thing is that when people sign up there details will go directly to the specified list on mailchimp. Meaning there is no extra work for the museum. All they need to do is go on each month, write the details, add some pictures and send it off!

Here is some pictures to show you what we mean:

Next week we will be going to visit the museum to give a workshop in using mailchimp, help them design there template (with a header and character styles etc) and make sure to make it as easy as possible.

We also plan to create a 'how to' manual for them in case they forget anything or get stuck (including screenshots similar to the ones above).

We hope this will act as a valuable resource!

Powering Through!

Here's just a short vid to share our process with you (that we made tonight - which we think is alot)!

Don't mind the terrible camera skills! :-)

And YES Anthea, we are filming a mac with a mac. We love the mac!

Enjoy.


.

Development - Website Planning

Refined Site Map:




Website Wireframes: Concept 1







Website Wireframes: Concept 2







Designs to come!

Work. Work. Work.

Kylea & I have just been working on a few (WireFrame) concepts for the Homepage of the Museum's website. Here's a wee vid to show us working MEGA hard!





We sent two compositions that we particularly liked to our mentor Anthea; to get her to check them out for us and give us feedback in regards to the technical composition! :-)

And these were our basic layout concepts:

Feedback from Museum

This is an email we received from Sandy (Education Co Ordinator) at the Museum.

Hi Kylea Liz Cam

Kay will definately need to see the logos but my initial response is that I like: 5 The foot prints and 3 The three squares idea. 4 The kite weaving is cool but gives the impression that we are about maori culture only. Can you put the weave into one of the squares in 3?Kay is back Tuesady 21st July.

We dont have hard copy of your design brief so i will try to type here the essence of the changes:

Page 4:

In general on this page you focus on price. Is that part of your requirements and there fore has to remain? The museum's primary driver is not making money. We seek to demonstrate the relevance of the past to our our present and to the future. We seek to deliver messages that are in the first place thought provoking and also engaging and entertaining.

Category 2- Teachers and Schools:

These are key consumers who bring large groups to the museum on EOTC trips [Education Outside The Classroom]The museum competes with a large, varied and well funded group of businesses and education providers in order to get children into the museum. We highlight our strengths which are:

-local historical content

-activity based and hands on learning.

-relevance to NZ social studies curriculum.

-proximety to local schools which keeps travel costs down for them[ Some can walk here]

-focus on devting a sense of place and identity for local kids leading to pride in our district.

-ability to customize the museum experience to meet the schools needs.

-provision of pre and post visit activities including a handling collection and worksheets.

-low cost[$2.00 per student]

Category 3-Existing Residents

Existing residents come alone or with family and friends. This group includes elderly patrons looking for "a trip down memory lane" and local specialists [geneologists,historians,collectors]with specifiic interests. Both groups offer the museum information which can be used for future reference and exhibitions and they also provide support by way of donations or loans of artifacts.

Thought you'd pretty much got the rest right!

One comment about your writing style [You may have been asked to do it the way you have in which case ignore this] which particularly stands out on Page 2. You use the words WE WANT TO/ WE HOPE TO several times . I think WE WILL is more positive. Also there are places where you dont need the WE ... at all. I'll reword Paragraph 1 to show you what i mean:

An important idea that we will address during our challenge time frame is the existing logo of the Papakura districts historical society. It has aged and needs up dating. We will modernize the logo.......imagery.On completion we will have created a more customized relevant brand for PDHS which the community of Papakura are drawn ......with.

[ For what its worth ?]

Thanks again team. Talk soon!

Sandi

Meeting with Anthea; Process?

Last night we met for (what's becoming) our weekly meeting with our mentor, Anthea. We mainly chatted about what we've been up to with the Challenge and the process were making. The following is our notes recorded from the meeting, thanks to Liz :-)

We also showed Anthea our Sitemap (in development stages) for the Museum's website.





NOTES from Meeting;

Think about changing the name of ‘History’ - about us? Change to.

How are we going to set up the Donations? Ph number they can call to contact the museum, or will they be able to complete a form online? Givealittle.com – can set a page up online. CHECK IT OUT!

Staff profiles – can it come under About Us?

Archives; Can we change the name to "................" (fill space)??? and can it come under History? – because it’s apart of the history content of the Museum.

Rename for Archives; Collections? Listings?

(Really look into the content of each ‘Button’, does it go there? Why? Does it fit? Or can it be moved somewhere else?

Wire Frames; work the frames off the Site Map. What pages will use the same Wire Frame as each other? Discuss, decide and sort out which pages should have the same layout and composition?

RESEARCH; look into other websites that relate? Where and what do they have for/under their buttons? Look at composition; imagery placement and content placement.

Get brief SIGNED OFF!!!! A.S.A.P!!! (We have done our part – just need their’s now. Have emailed Kay and are waiting for a response.)

Signing up for ‘Email attachment’ – talk to Kay about it next time, and whether they want to use it? We would like to help them set it up. ☺ Practice trying to sign up with our own accounts first, so when we do it with them, we can show them exactly how to do it; rather than the blind leading the blind.

On Wire-Frame; Image Rotator. (Moving images on any pages.)

Cam is going to chat to the Museum’s IT Guy. ☺

Sponsorship; Does it look good on the homepage? Or should we put it more ‘into’ the site. Through doing this it won’t draw the attention away from the Museum’s own website. Maybe put it within the ‘About Us’?

Wire-Frames; Always consider content.


TO DO;


Plan and design basic Wire frames. Need to get an idea for the composition of each page, eg; Homepage.

Getting feedback from Museum about the Logo – Where to go to from here?

Cam – trying to get the game (pretty much) finished by the end of this week. // Chatting to the IT Guy.

Really need to get our butts into gear with all the design process; particularly with the website.

Working Bee night!!! (Need to do one A.S.A.P!)

Progress Friday 10th July

After attending the Inspiration Evening on Wednesday both Cam and myself (Kylea) left feeling really positive, Liz was unfortunately to sick to make it, hopefully she will be feeling better soon :) We also had a quick meeting with Anthea afterwards about where we are at and where we are heading. Currently we have:

- Finalised the brief - Waiting for final approval from client

- Have sent Initial Logo concepts to client

- Done Initial Site Map

- Begun Designing the pages for the website

During the meeting we talked about the ways we are going to build certain aspects of the website, how we will be producing the clients email newsletter, continual documentation! and timeframes. 

These are our developmental pages for our logo concepts. We want to end up with something simple and long-lasting.  

And these are the concepts we sent to our client:

Once we get feedback on these concepts we will be ready to move forward onto further development.