After reviewing my completed website, my initial thought was to use the Godfather theme song. For a preview of this song follow this link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bPbmR4sK_gY
Although I am looking for a slow song to correspond with the sombre tone of my website, I feel that 'The Godfather' theme song is too slow.
I have decided to use a Michael Jackson song, Dirty Diana.
For a preview follow this link:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Myu0wZsNraM
This I feel has a mysterious element to it and works well with the visual aspects of my website. For example, the violins begin when my celebrity images are introduced and the electric guitar on the chorus is at it's peak when the word 'dangerous' begins flashing. This reinforces the horror element of my website.
I found the Michael Jackson song on you tube and converted it to an Mp3 file. However the original track had a screaming crowd in the background (at the intro to song and on end of second chorus). I decided to edit this out by cutting the beginng of the song out. I also added a fade to the song so that it faded in as opposed to just played abruptly, which could startle my viewers if volume is high.
Reflection on final piece and Evaluation
I am extremely happy with the end result of my product and feel that I fulfilled my aim. Which was to create a smokers prevention website based on the theory of Marshall McLuhan. My website portrays the fact that society has allowed the media to dictate how we behave. Mcluhan argued that perhaps modern technologies were becoming extensions of human features. My website supports his theory and portrays the fact that despite, smoking being so dangerous, society has allowed celebrities (who are presented to us in the media) to control the way we think and act, ultimately controlling us to smoke even though we know it's dangerous.
Independent Project Evaluation
My initial aim for my Independent project was to create a five page website. This website was to focus on encouraging people to stop smoking and to prevent people from starting to smoke, while basing my project on Marshall Mcluhan’s theory ‘the Medium is the Message’.
While creating my website, I decided that five pages would not be enough. Once my consumers had seen the ‘Splash page’ there would only be four pages left, so I felt it was necessary to include two more pages. After doing some research on different web pages and their content, I felt that as I am promoting a company, I should include contact details and a separate page that includes information on my company. These pages were created and entitled, the ‘Contact us page’ and the ‘About us page’. I initially planned to include the company information on my ‘Home page’; however my choices of design regarding the layout of each page, left me with very little space for this extra information. My website now contains seven pages, a ‘Splash page’, a ‘Home page’, a ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, a ‘Why Do We Start page’, a ‘Questions & Answers page’, an ‘About Us page’, and a ‘Contact Us page’.
In creating my website I felt that I had to be careful with regards to the information I researched and included in my project, particularly on my ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, which contains statistics regarding smoking and the deaths caused by it. While doing my research for this page I found lots of information on smokers in the United Kingdom, however my target audience is not restricted to consumers within the UK, my website is welcoming to consumers Worldwide. This meant that although the information was interesting and tempting to include in my project, I had to dismiss the information and only include information that was beneficial and relevant to consumers Worldwide.
One of the most challenging aspects of creating my website during the beginning stages was editing images in Photoshop. As I have not used this programme for a very long time, I was not as experienced in using the tools and making images look professional. I feel that the images presented in my project are quite amateur in their appearance and could definitely have been edited much better than they are. I decided to use a Michael Jackson instrumental for my website. The song I chose was ‘Dirty Diana’ which I feel has a sombre, melancholy tone to it. I am happy with my choice of song as I feel that it adds to the mysterious tone of my website. However, after adding my music, I felt that it would be necessary to add an ‘on/off’ button so that my consumers could control whether they wanted to listen to the music or not. As I am not extremely experienced in creating ‘on/off’ buttons for sounds in Flash, I was not very successful in creating these buttons perfectly. The music begins playing on my ‘Splash page’ however, when one enters another page, the sound stops and you are forced to press the ‘off’ button (although music isn’t playing) in order to get it playing again.
My favourite page on my website is my ‘Splash page’ I feel that if left to play, the different sounds incorporated in the soundtrack correspond nicely with the animations created and presented. For example, the violins begin playing when my images are introduced, and the electric guitar (on the chorus) is at its peak when the word ‘dangerous’ flashes in black and red (on ‘But are we aware of its dangerous effects?’ animation). I also enjoy my ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, I feel that at first sight it is quite attract with the use of bright contrasting colours which make certain sections stand out at first glance. I feel that my rollover images on this page will be appreciated by teenagers (my target audience) as interaction is key with regards to arresting ones attention.
Although I planned to include photographs that I had taken in my website, I felt that with the raw images I wanted to include, it was unnecessary for me to use my own photographs. For this project, internet images were more appropriate for my website, as I was able to find insightful images of people suffering from smoking related illnesses and diseases.
When I began the preparation for my website, I realised that too many animations on a website can become tedious. After asking some of my peers for their opinions on this, many stated that less is sometimes more. Also, after constructing research on many websites and animations used, I found that very few websites were saturated with dominating animations on each page. As a result of my research and feedback from my peers, I made the decision to limit the amount of animations included on each page. I felt that this was extremely effective as providing my consumers with information as opposed to entertaining them was my main priority within this project.
My initial aim for my Independent project was to create a five page website. This website was to focus on encouraging people to stop smoking and to prevent people from starting to smoke, while basing my project on Marshall Mcluhan’s theory ‘the Medium is the Message’.
While creating my website, I decided that five pages would not be enough. Once my consumers had seen the ‘Splash page’ there would only be four pages left, so I felt it was necessary to include two more pages. After doing some research on different web pages and their content, I felt that as I am promoting a company, I should include contact details and a separate page that includes information on my company. These pages were created and entitled, the ‘Contact us page’ and the ‘About us page’. I initially planned to include the company information on my ‘Home page’; however my choices of design regarding the layout of each page, left me with very little space for this extra information. My website now contains seven pages, a ‘Splash page’, a ‘Home page’, a ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, a ‘Why Do We Start page’, a ‘Questions & Answers page’, an ‘About Us page’, and a ‘Contact Us page’.
In creating my website I felt that I had to be careful with regards to the information I researched and included in my project, particularly on my ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, which contains statistics regarding smoking and the deaths caused by it. While doing my research for this page I found lots of information on smokers in the United Kingdom, however my target audience is not restricted to consumers within the UK, my website is welcoming to consumers Worldwide. This meant that although the information was interesting and tempting to include in my project, I had to dismiss the information and only include information that was beneficial and relevant to consumers Worldwide.
One of the most challenging aspects of creating my website during the beginning stages was editing images in Photoshop. As I have not used this programme for a very long time, I was not as experienced in using the tools and making images look professional. I feel that the images presented in my project are quite amateur in their appearance and could definitely have been edited much better than they are. I decided to use a Michael Jackson instrumental for my website. The song I chose was ‘Dirty Diana’ which I feel has a sombre, melancholy tone to it. I am happy with my choice of song as I feel that it adds to the mysterious tone of my website. However, after adding my music, I felt that it would be necessary to add an ‘on/off’ button so that my consumers could control whether they wanted to listen to the music or not. As I am not extremely experienced in creating ‘on/off’ buttons for sounds in Flash, I was not very successful in creating these buttons perfectly. The music begins playing on my ‘Splash page’ however, when one enters another page, the sound stops and you are forced to press the ‘off’ button (although music isn’t playing) in order to get it playing again.
My favourite page on my website is my ‘Splash page’ I feel that if left to play, the different sounds incorporated in the soundtrack correspond nicely with the animations created and presented. For example, the violins begin playing when my images are introduced, and the electric guitar (on the chorus) is at its peak when the word ‘dangerous’ flashes in black and red (on ‘But are we aware of its dangerous effects?’ animation). I also enjoy my ‘Smoking Related Illnesses page’, I feel that at first sight it is quite attract with the use of bright contrasting colours which make certain sections stand out at first glance. I feel that my rollover images on this page will be appreciated by teenagers (my target audience) as interaction is key with regards to arresting ones attention.
Although I planned to include photographs that I had taken in my website, I felt that with the raw images I wanted to include, it was unnecessary for me to use my own photographs. For this project, internet images were more appropriate for my website, as I was able to find insightful images of people suffering from smoking related illnesses and diseases.
When I began the preparation for my website, I realised that too many animations on a website can become tedious. After asking some of my peers for their opinions on this, many stated that less is sometimes more. Also, after constructing research on many websites and animations used, I found that very few websites were saturated with dominating animations on each page. As a result of my research and feedback from my peers, I made the decision to limit the amount of animations included on each page. I felt that this was extremely effective as providing my consumers with information as opposed to entertaining them was my main priority within this project.
Web Address
http://studentnet.kingston.ac.uk/~k0608880
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