Client and Project Information

Client/Company Name

Alison Rice Design

Due Date

My online portfolio must get online as soon as possible so the world can see my art! In honesty, I am in no rush toget my portfolio live. I will be working on it all semester and will not need to rush because I am currently employed. I want to give myself the best outcome.

Objectives

What is the mission or purpose of the site? Why will people come to the site?

The purpose of my online portfolio is to showcase the best of my creative works. People will visit my portfolio if they are interested in hiring me for an employment oppurtunity - weather it be a large corporation - a small business - or a single client...all of their potential “employers” could see my url on an online resume such as LinkenIn. I plan on self promoting in social media - so my friends will absolutley check out my creative works, someone might stumble upon my portfolio when searching random art and design related keywords in their search engine of choice, a past client may give my website url to a friend of theirs who needs creative work done. My biggest visitor, by far, is going to be my mother. She will show me off to anyone who will listen to her and is near her whenever she is near a computer.

What is the business problem and primary goals of the site? Teach, inform, persuade, etc?

1. To inform, show, and proove to potential clients through my awesome portfolio that I am a skilled designer and artist and I am the perfect fit to breathe life into their creative ideas.
2. To persuade potential clients and/or regualr visitors that I am the person they need to work with.
3. I want my site to be visually stunning and make sense in the design and typeography world. I would like it to be simplistic and blunt so my visitors do not have to guess one tiny thing.

Client Research

What are the company's product and/or services?

My services are for hire as a paid designer. The products are going to be what I produce - weather it be a website design, a business card, letterhead, company logo and branding package, etc.

What are the company’s negative traits or images associated with the industry?

A lot of people, and businesses, cannot fathom paying someone to perform the services that designers do...and pay the fee that we ask. One negative thing would be that clients just do not want to bite because they do not want to pay for a logo or for a business card, when they can just go to staples and get a stock one (grrr). Another negative thing might be that I am a female business owner. Despite how far woman’s rights have come, I have encountered this type of discrimination at just about every job I have held.

What is the client’s competitive advantage?

I am very determined and self motivated to make this website come out that way I want it to, and to also keep it up with blog posts, current creative, and self promotion. I have four years working in the industry, which is not a lot compared to the majority of designers, but I have been making art my whole life.

What are some pre-notions or misconceptions the audience might have about the company or industry?

1. Designers charge too much money for something that takes “like 5 minutes to do”
2. Why would I pay someone that much money when I can just go to Staples or VistaPrint for half the price?
3. Why would I pay someone to do something that I can just do myself?

Target Audience

Who is the primary audience? List audience categories and needs. Be specific, for example describe a typical member of that intended audience (age, sex, education level, occupation, accessing the site from mobile, or on the go, what type of internet connection do they have, etc.

1. Judy owns a yoga studio and is a friend of my Aunt Sandy. She is about 45 years old. Judy has a college degree in business, and the clients that she does have love her and her studio. However, she needs some help promoting her business and tried to create a brochure, but it turned out to be too much for her to handle. My aunt, a client and friend of Judy’s, mentioned that her neice (me) is a graphic designer and can help her with that issue. My aunt gave Judy my website link, and Judy visited it right from the computer in her yoga studio after all her clients were done for the day.
2. Mary works a full time job as an Occupational Therapist at Charlton Memorial Hosiptal. As a hobby, she has always loved making her own coffee syrup to use in baking, milk, etc. She gets nothing but compliments from everyone who tastes it. Mary decided that she needs to make some extra money on the side of her full time job, and is going to start selling her homemade coffee syrup at fairs, festivles, or where ever she can. She is in need of a logo, stickers for her jars, info tags to put on each jar, pricing guides, a whole bunch of branding and marketing pieces. A lady Mary works with said her daughter is a graphic designer and would love to help Mary. Mary’s friend gives her the web address of the designer. Since Mary does not have a computer at home (she did not grow up with one, so why does she need one now), she went to visit her son and asked him to help her look up this website.
3. I applied for a job position that required me to have an online portfolio. The job was for a graphic designer at a small design firm. I posted my resume and a link to my portfolio. The person incharge of reviewing resumes and portfolios, Sully, a college graduate and owner of his own design firm, must have been in the office reviewing the applicants. He visited my portfolio and was interested because he contacted me via e-mail looking to schedule an interview.
4. Steve owns a karate dojo that operates above a gym. Steve did not go to college, he is a single male who has dedicated his life to martial arts, fitness, and health. He has no formal business training, all business ethics and methods he practices he has learned on the fly. Steve is looking to promote the training of little kids while their parents work out down stairs. Steve would like two large posters that can be hung downstairs in the gym so that parents with children, that would need a babysitter, can see these posters. Steve does a google search from his smart phone for poster design, and ends up refining his search to graphic designers in his area after seeing all the search results come back with “graphic design” in the answers. Since my website has awesome SEO, Steve finds my portfolio, checks it out, and sends me an email telling me about his idea for these two posters.
5. Justin is a college graduate with an associates degree in graphic design. He started college a little later in life, at the age of 25 and graduated by the age of 28. Justin is not ready to continue his college education, and would like to jump right into the work force so that he can make some money and pay bills. He is very computer savy and is able to design and code his own online portfolio. However, he is looking at what other designers are doing with their portfolios for inspiration. He wants to see layout, colors, navigation names, content organization, coding, and general design.

Choose your three most important audience members out of the five above and list their needs/goals/reasons for going to your site. List the most important audience member first. Note: this is from the user’s point of view, not the client’s.

1. Mary - small business owner
a. Needs: needs full branding for her homemade coffee syrup.
b. Goals: to have a lovely logo, tags, stickers, and whole line of products that are exactly what she wanted
c. Reason for visit: a lead given to her by a friend at work, she is checking out this designer’s portfolio to see if this is what she needs to continue wither her marketing and branding.
2. Sully - potential employer
a. Needs: a competitant and skilled employee that fits the job perfectly
b. Goals: to find the employee he is looking for after seeing my portfolio
c. Reason for visit: my portfolio was linked on my resume, his reason for going to my site is to look at my site as a an actual portfolio piece and how I designed it and coded it, as well as how well I communicate navigation and flow throughout my website, and then my actual portfolio as well.
3. Justin - peer and fellow graphic designer
a. Needs: to make an online portfolio of his own
b. Goals: to have an awesome online portfolio after being inspired by looking at multiple designer’s portfolios
c. Reason for visit: he stumbled upon my portfolio when looking through designer’s portfolios and decided to have a look around to see how I set mine up

Create a scenario in paragraph format of each of your three audience members above and how each member would use your site. Take into consideration your audience needs and goals from question two. Be creative and thoughtful. Give your characters a name, background, and a reason to come to your site. Explain how the character will use your site to complete the given task, learn from the information presented or be persuaded to by the viewpoint presented. Good work here can enable you to come up with a much more innovative design.

1. Mary - Since Mary does not have a computer at home, and will be using her son’s, he will most likley be helping her as well. Mary’s son will help her navigate to my portfolio and then while Mary moves around my website clicking here and looking there, her son will be hovered over her...also looking, but also there just in case Mary has a computer issue. My site will need to be easy to understand right off jump, and easy to navigate. Mary is not going to want to play little digital games like pong, or any sort of new-fangled modern decoration for websites. I will have examples of full branding in my portfolio, as well as visual examples of how a logo can expand into tags, letterheads, price tags, stickers, pens, etc.
2. Sullly - He is a business man, a man who knows how to use a computer because he uses one every day. He is also a man who knows design, because he owns his own design firm. Sully needs a perfect match for the type of employee he has in his head, and hopes to find one in this pile of resumes and portfolios he has in front of him. Sully likes my resume, so has reason to navigate to my website. Once he is there, he is captivated by the simplistic and function layout and design choices I have made. I have made it easy for him to navigate to my portfolio, and to find my contact information. He will use my website, and compare it to other websites he is looking at, and make his decision on who to hire.
3. Justin - since Justin is a fellow graphic design major, he is both computer & design savy. He is in dire need of making his online portfolio so that he can begin applying for jobs that will pay the bills! Before diving in head first blind, he decides to google “graphic design portfolios” and see what other designers are doing. Since he wants the best portfolio, he is going to be looking at a lot of different sites and taking small bits and pieces from each designer. I want my site to inspire Justin to stay on it for more than a few seconds, and for him to look around and be inspired by at least one element of design I used, and hope that it helps him design his own portfolio in some way, or at least get the creative juices flowing.

Branding Conclusions

Analyzing your descriptions above, describe the tone, personality and image your site should portray. Corporate, fun, edgy, etc.

1. blunt & to the point
2. easy to navigate
3. well designed
4. modern, but not too modern
5. a bit whitty

What should your audience’s first impression be when they come to your site?

They should immediatley know what site they have landed on, who I am, what I do, and what I offer. After that, they should be enticed to click the navigation links and not be intimitated by a whole bunch of links and drop down menus. I want to get the point across as simple and fabulous looking as possible.

What are some target audience concerns that may affect the design? Low bandwidth, large font for elderly, easy usability for small children, etc

1. Users on mobile deivces may not get the correct experience
2. If I make it modern and edgy for a potential employer - is that too much for the older small business owner that does not care about all of that stuff?
3. If I make it too simple, will potential employers and my peers think I am not skilled?
4. will the way I design my site turn off a potential client
5. low bandwith - portfolio sites will have a lot of images, especially if there is a blog.

Header and footer will always be on every page.

Home/index

At the very top on a thin bar seperate from my header: my email address & phone number at the very top left, and all of my social media links at the very top right. My navigation will be four links, two on either side of my logo. My logo wil be my home link. Under that will be boldly stated exactly what I do and what this website is about; something like “I create print and web designs for people”. Under that will be a photo of me, and a blurb about myself and what I do. I would like to have an area next to the about me section showcasing my blog, and enticing people visually to visit it. For my footer, I will have my main nav, but smaller, contact and social media links again too.

Portfolio

I want my portfolio to be organized into categories so that all different types of clients/viewers can go directly to what they are here to see. Then, if they want, they can easily browse other topics. Each topic will have a featured image, then when clicked, it will open to its own page.

Category#1: Page dedicated to specific area of design.

Category#2: Page dedicated to specific area of design.

Services

A list and description of all the services I can offer potential clients. Possibly a link to that specific portfolio page. For example, publications & brochures in services would also link to my publications & brochures portfolio page.

Portfolio#1: Link from particular service to the portfolio page for that type of work.

Portfolio#2: Link from particular service to the portfolio page for that type of work.

Blog

My blog will be a constant flow, one blog on top of another. Maybe archive each month? If that is the case, then I would like a side navigation showing the archived months for a more organized look, and less scrolling.

Contact

I would like to have a basic form for people to fill out: name, email address, message. Also, it will have my picture again and all of my contact information and social media links.

Home Page

Portfolio Page

Services Page

Blog

Contact

To view my spec sheet, please click here.