Using Photoshop I started today by creating buttons for my navigation bar. I used a similar design to MTV’s navigation buttons by creating a gradient and made them on Photoshop. This is what mine looked like.

I’m pleased with these as they look simple and professional which I think is because of the gradient and the outer glows that I used. At first the outer glow looked tacky, but I managed to avoid this by lowering the opacity.

I then decided to try DreamWeaver, the web design programme fro Macs. I found this to be quite complex, but had so many widgets and ways to stylize everything. In five minutes on Dreamweaver I managed to create a rollover drop down navigation bar that I had been trying for weeks on FrontPage. Everything on Dreamweaver looks so much more professional and I can change everything to make it personal and exactly the way I want it to look. I am going to use this from now on for my website because I think FrontPage will produce a much more amatuer website in comparison.

I had some trouble viewing my website in a browser at first, but after messing about with it I managed to sort it out and I think this will be a case of just practising and seeing how stuff works on the software.

I am now going to focus on taking my images, by following my mock ups and drafts.

Today I started to create the base of my website on Microsoft FrontPage.

I created the navigation and the links between the first few pages, which so far are; TV, Sport, Music, Reality and the Homepage.

I wanted to create a horizontal navigation bar with a roll over effect which brought down a more specific menu for each section. I used various tuturiols and HTML codes, but found I really struggled. So I have decided to leave this bit for a while because it seems it is probably going to be the hardest part of the website design.

I think it is going to take a lot of hard work to create the website how I would like it so I’m going to have to spend a lot of time learning HTML and will be using various books and websites.

So far I’ve used the tutorial from this website:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:lo7moCB0JhcJ:www.thekjs.essex.sch.uk/yates/Documents/FrontPage2000.doc+tutorial+frontpage+2000+websites+that+suck&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

I did already know the things on this, but it helped jog my memory. I now have a basic hyperlinked navigation bar which runs along the top of all my pages thanks to shared borders.

I also looked at the themes which come with the software, but they are all pretty rubbish so I am going to upload my own.

One helpful thing about the tutorial was all the tips it has without about what makes a good website including a link to what bad websites look like.

Next I’m going to work on adding graphics and my logo to the homepage. I’m also going to start planning advertisements that would be suitable.

Using my research and feedback I set to work creating a suitable logo for my website. I didn’t want to use little pictures or anything because I wanted it to be simplistic and not complicated. I used the font that my peers had chosen as their favourite and adapted it to make it more personal and suitable as a logo.

This is my final design:

I’ve chosen to use purple as it is eye catching and also appeals to the females of my target market without being too girly.

I’ve adapted this by adding a drop shadow and extending the bottom of the ‘g’ and the top of the ‘e’. I decided this would be best because it looks less like a font you would find a main body of text written and more like something that would look good in the corner of each of my web page.

Extreme

http://www.extreme.com

Homepage

• The background is white with black, grey and blue text to make words stand out and easy to read
• There is a black banner at the top with a grey navigation bar and white text, they are all very boyish colours
• The logo as in a lot of websites is in the top left hand corner
• There are several advertisements dotted around the page which aren’t particularly relevant; phone company, driving school, car hire and one saying ‘Time to find a real job’..which makes me wonder what kind of people watch this tv channel
• The font is the same and is quite boring and too small
• There is also a photo for every article so some of them are small to fit in and they are too small to see
• Horizontal menu bar; Home, OnTV, Videos, Events, Photos, Articles, 10_years, Games, Forum, Win

I have the name for my tv channel, ‘Edge’, so now I need implement a logo onto the computer using this. I started by selecting 12 various fonts and printing out my name in each font.

I did a survey of several peers to get some general feedback about the fonts and also tallied which one they thought would be the most suitable.

I told each person that:

• The logo was for a tv channel aimed at young people
• The tv channel is aimed at both genders
• The tv channel broadcasts extreme sports/music/reality tv
• The music genre is rock/indie
• The logos currently have no colour, I am just focusing on the fonts and I am going to add to them in Photoshop

Feedback:

1 ‘This is good because it fits a general genre which would be suitable for my tv channel because it’s target market is broad.’

2 ‘Too 50 year old grandad’

3 Needs to be bigger and more in your face, but otherwise good.

‘Looks like something you’d see on a music television channel

‘Reminds me of the Fender logo so would fit in well with the music genre’

4 ‘Makes me think of English literature. If you

Today I implemented my website sketches into a PowerPoint presentation to show present my homepage layout and ideas to peers. I also used hyperlink to show interactive features e.g. how i want the navigation bar to expand when you hover over it.

I got lots of good feedback from people and the main criticisms were that the background was to plain and the layout to random. I played around with the layout a little, but found it looked too much like a magzine. I referred to my research and looked at some websites; ITV, Channel 4, MTV to refresh my memory. I’m happier with the layout, but think it will look better when I expand on the design elements more when I take my next step and when I create this in FrontPage.

Today I added to my TV Channels research by looking at Nickelodeon and looked at the website homepage for 4Music.

I was surprised to learn that Nickelodeon is aimed at children aged 6-20 as I couldn’t imagine a 20 year old watching Nickelodeon, but then again it might be different in different parts of the world.

From looking at the 4Music homepage I learnt that less is more when it comes to websites as in comparison to the MTV homepage it was a lot easier to view and the images were better larger.

Also these are some other points I picked up on which will help me produce a good website:

• Have a simple yet effective and memorable logo
• Use a light background and contrasting text to make it easy to read, as well as quite a simple font
• Adverts are usually related to the websites content to target specific markets e.g. guitar brand advertised on a music channel website

My research is going to be split into four parts; Existing TV channels, websites, newspaper advertisements and TV listing advertisements.

TV Channels

I’m going to look at four existing TV channels to gain some general knowledge about the industry and how they work.

Websites

I’m going to analyse music, sports and reality tv channels because this is what I would like to base my website on.

I’m going to look at the homepage and the websites as a whole.

Then I’m going to compare them and summarise to come to a conclusion of what makes a good website.

Newspaper advertisements

I will look at three newspapers advertising a tv channels and make points on what works and what doesn’t.

TV listings

The same format will go for tv listing advertisements as it did for newspapers to see if there is a difference and to learn for when I create my own advertisements.

• Previously known as Pinwheel 1977-1981
• Owned by Viacom
• American cable television channel
• Also broadcast in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Asia
• Aimed at children 6-20
• Prime time aimed at children 12-20
• Launched 1st December 1977
• Went national 1st April 1979
• Famous for ‘You Can’t Do That On Television’
• Used to finish programmes at 9pm
• Was known in 1981 as ‘Nickelodeon, the first channel just for kids’

• Channel 4 began on 2nd November 1982
• It is publicly self funded
• Channel 4 is broadcast all over the UK and also in some nearby countries
• It’s sister channels are; E4, More 4, Film4 and 4Music
• It is a terrestrial channel normally tuned to 4, except for in Wales
• Channel 4 premiered popular shows including Friends and ER
• The first advert shown was for the Vauxhall Cavalier Mk II
• The first man and woman on the channel were Richard Whitely and Carol Vorderman
• It also showed reality shows including Big Brother
• Channel 4 targets a wide audience, but has a clear market for 18-35 year olds