Initial Design

I decided to create the look of my site within Fireworks as both vector and bitmap editing tools are available and the software is specifically designed for this purpose. Another reason I choose Fireworks is because the native '.png' files can also be edited within other software like 'Dreamweaver' and 'Photoshop'.

I opened up Fireworks and looked through the fonts and found one that I thought was 'eastern' or 'spiritual' looking and created some lines coming off it with the link texts at the end of each line. It reminded me of a circuit board, so I tried a gold coloured font on a green background.

It was at this moment thatBrad (Yoda Mandala) gave me his photo's. I decided to experiment with them to create another idea.

I looked through the selection of photos I had been supplied. I chose a photo that had a plain background (windmill with blue sky) as there would be minimum interference in contrast with the content of the site.

I positioned the image at an angle and with the tip of the windmill on the bottom left focal point (taking into account the law of thirds). I sampled the blue colour from the sky in the image and filled the whole sky area with this colour (decreasing file sizes). I then began work on the logo design at the bottom right focal point.

I used the same font I had chosen earlier for the main title: "Yoda Mandala". I picked another futuristic looking font for the links and arranged the links around my logo. I chose this font as it contrasts with the other font and has a futuristic or electronic feel (as Yoda Mandalas music).

As the background is a cool colour (blue), I decided that everything else should be in warm colours and neutral colours to give contrast to the site. I made all of the text a neutral light grey colour and changed the word 'Yoda' to a warm orange. I decided that all rollovers would be in this same orange colour, and I would use the colour to pick out important parts of the page.

I then added some content to decide how the content would be displayed. I laid out ideas for the 'Info' Page and the 'images' page.

Having designed how the site will look, I can now think about how I will build the site.