Below you can see an ISSUU document containing my final boards for my Self Promotion: 

www.joelead.com

Since I plan on contacting studios abroad for possible international internships after graduation, I thought it was absolutely vital to spend some time making my website more up to scratch, as well as changing my branding. There will be another blog post on my self branding, but this post will concentrate on the website. 

I use cargo collective to host my projects. This is much easier than coding from scratch, as projects can quickly be uploaded, as well as being responsive. 

Before - Issues:

- Bodycopy too small. 

- Bodycopy columns too wide. 

- Imagery not lining up, even though images are same pixel width when imported. 

- Confusing navigational arrows. 

These two pages feel bare, and could even be combined as a single page. 

                                                                                                                                                                      

After looking at a few websites I liked, something fairly unique I came across was this: 

Both the above websites used the home page to express what the studio is about. 

This works well if people have already come across your work and want to find out more information about you. You have already attracted them to your website by your projects, so they want to understand more about you. A website with imagery on the home page is for attracting attention if it is not already there. Furthermore, a lot of studios, when you work for them, want you to remove your online work. This would be much easier if the home page is just information. 

I began playing around with a statement below: 

Using Adobe Typekit, I learnt how to install custom fonts to my website to give it something more unique than Arial, Times, etc. 

Adding links to projects and contact details: 

The 'press' page has been changed to 'experience' to include career details: 

The project pages were split into a three column grid, the point size made larger. This allows the body copy to read better. However, I still need to work out how to create a padding between each column. 

I managed to work out the coding to create columns with padding: 

Furthermore, this way of coding the column grid system also allowed responsiveness. I figured out how to make a text box convert back to a single column at a certain width. 

Before: 

After: 

Creating a 4 column system for the footer with contact details: 

I wanted to try and work out how to use images in 2 columns. This is actually more difficult than it sounds. Images are uploaded using a system on cargo where image size cannot be adapting, and is made responsive to the page. 

I first tested out how to make images half a width of the page, taking into account the padding between margins of the column. This was worked out using a 2 column text box. 

This did not work, the images simply didn't display.  I realised later on that a few options could be untucked some settings on cargo, I did not actually need to work it out with code. 

The images in use: 

I contemplated creating cover images for each page using brand colours: 

However I found the imagery itself was much more attractive than text: 

I also added a 'brand marks' set, showcasing my logos and logotypes for the passed two years. 

The finished footer in use:

Arrows were added at the side of each project, allowing you to flick through all the selected work. 

The 'type design' text is also clickable, to just show posts that are tagged with the 'type design' label. 

I began editing old images to look better, but I feel this is something I shouldn't waste my time on for now, and could be something to come back to. 

Below is an ISSUU document containing variations for the business cards, now a logotype has been developed: 




After deciding on business cards, a letterhead and invoice were both easy to design, based on the same grid system: 

After deciding on Domaine as a basis, I decided on experimenting with different characters within the font family, the option I have decided to develop is in a box:

I felt like the letters could be more unique to me, so they were redrawn, with proportions slightly changed. As well as that, additional changes can be seen in the ISSUU document below, which has been annotated: 

As I will be using the typeface for my logotype commercially, I've researched into possible typefaces to use, released by some of my favourite type foundries. I have a large collection of PDF's of typefaces released by Type Foundries, with a few of them selected and screenshot below.

Antwerp is not interesting enough for me: 

CWM is highly structural which makes me think it's not suitable for my practice

Grot 10 isn't interesting enough for me as a logotype. 

The same can be said for Italian Sans:

The same can be said for Recognition:

Berlingske Serif is one of my favourite typefaces at the moment, and I think it's absolutely beautiful. However, I still feel it isn't unique enough. 

Domaine is another typeface I love. It has lots of quirky characteristics that I haven't seen similar of before. 

I love the typefaces features, and certain think it will make my logotype stand out compared to other typefaces. The next test is to see if it suits my name: 

I love how the letters look. There is certainly something unique in the curvature of the letters, and how the J, a & r have been tapered off. The next step will be to customise the logotype and make something unique to me.