BCIT New Media & Web Development.

For this project I was tasked with creating a Poster and Web Banner.

There is an on running theme to a lot of my work. Music.

Given a choice I usually try and create something based around a band, festival, cd promotion etc.

So for this project I created an imaginary festival poster and web banner.

The main points to get across are Who, Where, When and How much. So having all these bits of information clearly visible along with a link to the festival website were a priority.

Using a pleasing and simple colour scheme to portray a beach scene where the event was to take place.

Images such as a guitar, drum kit and microphones give an instant idea of what the event is.

I have a real interest in posters in general. Classic movie posters in particular have always fascinated me.

My portfolio

www.joannecheng.ca

Hello, I'm Joanne. 
After I graduated form BCIT, I would like find a job as a graphic designer.
I like to make my designs simple with an addition of my own photography with it.
This is the first portfolio site I made. 

This is the portfolio site that created. As you can see all the photos on this site are taken by myself. Moreover, I made the website so that it is clear and concise for my audience.

Now I will be showing you one of my projects

This project was done in Project Management class.  We had to create a website, and ours is a graphic t-shirt site. Every individual in the group had an important role, and my role was the graphic designer.

I have chosen to use simple colours, and designs for the website so my clients can easily utilize the site. I also made the logo as a hanger, so people will have a deep impression about the website, and will also have a knowledge about what the site is about.

I hope you enjoy my website!

protect animals

This logo is made from the video class in term 2.
Our project was to create whatever video we like.
Me and my partner, Renee, had an idea to film from dog's sight.
At my home country, Taiwan, there are many people abandoned their pet. Therefore 
on the streets you can see many homeless dogs or cats.
We want to make the video about a story of when a dog got dumped by its owner, how sad will it be.
I also want to promo not to buy any pet but adopt them.
Not to have them because they are cute. Once you own them, you are responsible for their whole life. You are their everything.
I made this logo with cat and dog and have it with the heart shape showing the love.

Third Post

What makes for a good portfolio website ?

1.Be yourself. Show some personality.

Don’t copy someone else’s site design just because you think it looks good.

2.Put your best work.

Take the time to look at all of your work and carefully choose the right pieces for your portfolio.

3.Make the website simple.

When designing a portfolio, you want a website that is straightforward.

4.A summary that expresses your process.

Share the backstory of how you developed your point of view. 

5.Put your contact

Your contact information should be obvious and easy to access.

7 Steps for better SEO

1. Relevant keywords

The first step is to research related and relevant keywords and phrases that customers or website visitors would be searching for.

Example: if your your bike shop is in Vancouver BC, Vancouver bike shop would be an Important key-phrase.

Your main focus should be understanding your customers language that they might be using while searching for your company.


2. Optimize the content of your site

It is really important to create rich high-quality content when driving traffic to your site. In todays age, content is extremely critical for internet users and search engines.

Testimonials, customer reviews, and Q&A's are highly recommended, information about your staff is also very useful for users and SE.

Take full advantage of your contact page, for localized business it is said that other than the home page the contact page is second most important page. make sure to include:

• company name
• phone number 
• address
• embedded geo site map

The more content you have the better, making sure it is all valid and useful.

Once you have all your metadata and keywords in place,  now you can start looking for non related factors that will benefit your site.

3. Be consistent 

Inconsistency is a big no-no when it comes to SEO, Google and Bing both have a disliking for content of this nature as it can negatively effect your online presence.

Use the same details throughout your social media platforms, websites and local listings.

4. Legitimate and genuine reviews 

Ask customers who actively use your site for genuine reviews. When I say genuine reviews I don't necessarily mean positive, constructive criticism is highly recommended to benefit services. 

Give your  users several ways and options for commenting and reviewing.

5. Social profile optimization

To reach out to all potential customers its important to stay active on all social media platforms.

Make sure that all your social profiles are linking to each other and include your location and region, as well as your business name and a URL back to your website.

Listing your Facebook page as a local business will improve the chance of reaching the top listing in Facebook search.

6. Mobilize your site

There is over 1 million new users a day accessing the internet from their phone.

For customers in local regions mobile access is highly convenient for users on the go.

Be cautious of software like Flash and PDF that aren't fully supported on more popular devices.

7. Update and analyze results

Once you start working on your local SEO, its important to analyze your results. The best way to do this is to use tools to monitor and analyze.

First off is monitoring your selected keywords. A good tool to do so is AWR Cloud.

Moz Analytics is also a good source for monitoring rank.

Check your rank on a weekly basis and keep note of noticeable changes.

Once you have the previous tools i mentioned set up, now is time to use Google Analytics for a organic analysis of your website to monitor its improvement. 

So if your doing these steps properly you should be able to track and noticeably see an increase in traffic :)

ENJOY!

Everyone should take a law class.

I've never taken a class that is more useful and applicable to everyone.  There is an aspect of law that is applicable to every person in every profession out there. 

As my law professor put it, the law is just the way it is.  It's not debatable.  It is written in plan English and intended to be straight forward.  It exists whether you care or not and it applies to your work in more ways than you probably know. 

After taking a law class, I've learned how our world works a little better.  Law is a structure that all business must be built on.  So if you want to understand business in our modern day, and more importantly if you want to be successful, you should must understand some law. 

So if you have some spare time and feel like learning something useful, enrol in a law class. 

How to make your Facebook page more PR friendly, and why you should be doing it right now!

If you were anything like me a month ago, you had hundreds of irrelevant, inappropriate, and downright awful photos of yourself on display for the whole internet to see. I didn't recognize this problem until it was mentioned in a social media class I'm involved in. I came to the shocking realization that I was telegraphing all sorts of messages to professional colleagues, instructors, and potential employers.

I was horrified.

So immediately, I began an en-masse untagging spree, deleting entire photo albums, and tossing out profile pictures. I spent over 2 hours on this and over 200 photos were tossed in what I like to call "The Purge". That's 200 photos of myself that made me feel uncomfortable when looking at them. 

So, how does somebody avoid making this mistake? Here's a few 'best bets' to passively control the content on your social media platforms.

1. When in a social setting, especially when alcohol is involved, either kindly decline to have your photo taken, or politely ask that any photos taken of you will not be tagged.

2. Change your privacy settings. If you are someone who is very attached to that photo of yourself holding that red dixie cup full of questionable liquid, then change your settings so only your friends can view your photos.

3. When posting photos yourself, briefly think to yourself "would I show this photo to my boss/would I be comfortable with a potential employer seeing this?'. It's important that your social media page reflects who you are, but the line must be drawn once your professional integrity comes into question.

Your entire life is out there for the world to see with social media. It's a scary thought at first, but use it to your advantage and keep this in mind when doing anything with your online public information. Professionalize your personal page and you might be surprised how differently you'll be treated by your peers!

When Creativity Flatlines

When Creativity Flatlines

Stoked! 3 views last week (instructor, mom, and me). And the show goes on...

This week: How to stay inspired. 

Amid your busy schedule, it is essential to keep the creativity flowing; a feat much easier said than done. When you're constantly designing, the "well" has a tendency to sometimes slow to a trickle, if not dry up completely. Fear not. Here are two of my favourite ways to hit refresh and escape a creative drought.

Pocket Pics.
These days, everyone has a camera in their pockets and it's time you took advantage of it. Use your phone to take quick pictures of anything and everything you find interesting. Like the pattern on your take-out box? Snap it. How about the graffiti scribbled on the side of the bus, or the design of that old sewing machine? Snap those things too. So many of my design ideas come from my phone's camera gallery. I scroll through it from time to time and find all sorts of cool things I've taken pictures of. I recently used a colour scheme that I had seen on a can of peaches, ages ago.

Become a Card Collector.
So much good design can be found on other people's business cards, and usually goes unnoticed. Mind you there's heaps of bad design too, but that's the beauty of business cards. I find myself keeping any cards that intrigue me, even if I don't know why, and I file them away for later. Looking back over your collection can help you identify styles or trends that you didn't know you like(d) or realize that you actually don't like a certain style. Either way, the card comparisons can provide a starting point for a project that you may have never even considered. 

Basically, just try to analyze everything you look at or interact with. Take that extra second to make a mental note on why you like it, or what you like about it. Chances are that, if you put the effort into thinking about it in the first place, somewhere down the line, the thought will pop back into your head when you need it, thus saving the day. Theoretically of course. 


—tom

The Gap Between Good Taste and Good Work

Most of the creative work that I do is a disappointment to me: a common feeling that a lot of people have when they first start doing creative work. They have good taste - that's why they started doing creative work  -  but the things they create are just not as good as they want them to be.

This is the subject of the Ira Glass speech in following animated short. He offers simple yet remarkably profound advice on how to close the gap between your creative ambitions and the work you produce. 

The speech was animated by film maker David Shiyang Liu. 



I can definitely relate to this in my own experience. What do you guys think?

Increase credibility and/or persuasion to the website

In term 2, we learned how to build the website more credible, accessible and persuasive.These three components are necessary and you should think about it first, when you create the website.For the final project, I designed the website called "COOPER BOATING" which rents the boat in Vancouver area. Also we are assigned to add 10 different elements we will incorporate on our website to help add credibility and/or persuasion to our project.  This is the website design that I created.

The elements that I added on this website is the following:

01. PROFESSIONAL DESIGN

The new design for COOPER BOATING has professional, friendly and consistent design by using clear layout, readable font size and limited color scheme. The slide show banner is effective to show their special offers since users eyes tend to follow the big image when they first visit the website. Color scheme is mainly limited into 3 colours, which express summer and positive image: blue, orange and gray. Because of these limited color, users will be able to scan the whole website easily and reach the information quickly. The orange colour is only used in interactive modules such as button and links, so that once users have learned the design and they quickly can perform tasks by only seeing colours. The simple icons increase the readability of your content as well.

02. EASY TO CONTACT

Stanford Guidelines says to show the contact information to boost the site’s credibility. There are two ways to reach the information on this website, one is from “About” area and another is from contact link from global navigation on header and footer. Also, adding the company photo on the contact page is important to make COOPER BOATING reliable.

03. UPDATE YOUR SITE’S CONTENT OFTEN

Regarding SEO and credibility, it is also effective way to add the news blog on the homepage. This will keep customers and prospects coming back. The website’s news blog has information about current service status. Adding the photos to each content is also good way to convey their great services.

04. EASY TO USE AND USEFUL

The majority of users will look for the information of boat rental service, course, clubs and events. The new website is easy to use because there are several ways t o look for that information: searching bar, search by fleet and search by calendar. If the users want to search in those specific ways, these searching systems are very useful for users.

05. TESTIMONIALS, INTERACTIVITIES

Reviewing system gives opportunity to users to participate in t he website’s interactivity. Also reviews that users wrote will show potential customers that the website is trustworthy, reliable and an expert in the field.

06. SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS

Adding social media icons is successful way not only for SEO, but also to add in user’s social network and make users to remember to return at another time, even if users won’t make any action at the moment. Word of mouth is a great form of advertising, and it can also be a reliable way to bring much needed traffic to the website.

07. ABILITY TO CHANGE THE FONT SIZE

This function allows users to change the text size they see online to suit their preference on every devices, regardless of what text display options are built-in to a website. The icon is located in header area as users often scan from the header, and the function should to be seen at the first moment.

08. NO ADVERTISEMENTS

Unnecessary advertisements and pop-ups decrease users motivation to stay on the website. The new website doesn’t have any ads other than their own ads for specialty offers so that users can only focus on their great deals.

09. SIMPLE STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION

Structure and navigation are very straightforward on this website. The information is all divided into the block element so that users will be easy to follow the site structure. “About” and “News Blog” content can be read on the homepage without going to another page. Also, “Book Now” button is made to stand out since some of the users just want to book their service straight away.

10. HIGH CONTRAST

There is a high contrast between text and background on this website to increase legibility. Using blue and orange colour is also an effective way to emphasize the contrast as well, since these are complementary colours. The limited font size (h1, h2, p) increase efficiency in order to make users to learn the website structure easily.