Stages of designing our website

To create a website to support our artist we looked for a free web builder that gave a professional finish. Our requirements led us to choose 'Wix' as this allowed us to choose the style without the need to code the website in HTML.. Although we had not used this web builder before we spent time getting used to the range of facilities that it had to offer, thus gaining confidence with the package.To deepen my knowledge I watched the help videos and used

these to test various styles We were able to browse templates and choose one that we felt would compliment and enhance the style we were looking for.

We decide to have a background theme that reflected our artists name and researched paintings entitled 'The Garden of Eden'. We particularly enjoyed the Flemish artist Jan the Elder Brueghel and decided to use his image.When it was set we decided as a background it did not enhance the webpage and so we continued to look for a more 'edgy' image. Having chosen this image we decided to check whether we had the right mix and sought opinions of our peers for the most appealing image. We used this feedback and tried this image as the background for the website. When we tried the more colourful and modern image we felt it detracted from the purpose of the website due to the fact that it overpowered the writing and would have been difficult to navigate the webpages easily.

We continued our search for a background and found a woodland scene. Unfortunately we were unable to resize the picture within the web design package as the image was too small and when it was stretched to fit it became pixilated and unrecognisable. Although we had found one that worked (above, pink, purple, orange sky) we then added Lila Eden written in many different fonts but we feel it just didn't work at all. So again began redesigning.

As a team we discussed our choices so far and decided to look for a water based image as this was a setting included in our video.As a still this image looked fine but when it was stretched as a background the water looked distorted and the background was dull.

Our final choice was using a single picture that Faye had taken and we were very pleased with the outcome. We came to this decision after viewing other artists and decided that in most cases they include a background image of themselves.The image of myself was a high quality picture and therefore there were no problems with the size and pixels.

 Key features of the website is for fans to find gig information, shop for merchandise, look at photos and listen to the music. We needed to make sure that the site was easy to navigate and used buttons and hyperlinks to transport visitors around the site. We felt that it was important to have the links to social media sites as this is now an expectation from a younger audience. We included Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. As merchandise is popular with fans a button was inserted and it was essential to have a secure sections with buyer protection and for this we chose Paypal.


At the start of this project there was not a clear direction that we had chosen. When we sat down and focused on some of the ideas we had researched we found a clear direction that linked together and then most the ideas fell into place. We needed to examine and explore a wide range of images and styles to be creative and decided on our direction.
Once collated and organised I was able to edit the site by changing and adding additional pages and information. I also tried a range of previously unused fonts and colours. The outcome of creating the website from scratch is that  I became a more confident  user of the web builder software and this led to increased creative output.