disintegrate

rate

Ok, so for my corporate website project I have to redo the whole website of Sony BMG Malaysia [ http://www.sonybmg.com.my/ ] daymmnn it's a boring website. I mean, for SONY BMG?!?How could they DO such a thing for the website. tsk tsk. Anyways, here's my client's competitors analysis. the first one out is;

Virgin Records [www.virginrecords.com/ ]

Virgin Records are also a record label some what similar to EMI. They have their own sets of artists under them as they are a recording label and will then distribute their music and promote the artists to the bigger market.

Based on the design of the website, it has a clean cut feeling and seems a very neat arrangement of information especially in their Home Page. Things can be clearly seen in the website as there are less text and a nice and simple use of images with minimal text. They obviously used alot of red throughout the website to further emphasize the corporate colour of the company, which in my opinion there is TOO MUCH use of it especially as a background colour. The colour is too straining to the user's eye. What they should have done is either a darker shade of red or a more neutral colour to balance it and not make it too red. However, I like the change of images they put in the center in the Home Page,which somehow killed off the straining of the red colour.

The content that they have in their websites are 'news', 'artists', 'releases', 'appearances', 'music+videos' and 'free stuff'.

The layout of the 'Artists' page is quite different compared to the other competitors. Instead of putting the various artists images on the page, they have instead placed the artists name in a A to Z position, and beside it include an XML feed to the artists latest news,tours,link to their own site and user can also sign up to the artist newsletter. This will then be easier for user to browse through the artist that they want and get the information about them easily in a simple click.

When the user explores into the 'Releases' section, that is where they can find the latest releases of albums from the various artists and they have a button for them to click and purchase their album. Instead of them waiting for the delivery of the artist's album to appear on their doorsteps, in Virgin Records, they would purchase the album though ITunes. This has an advantage and disadvantage. In a way, they have moved along with the trend of selling the mp3s of the album to the user, but the bad thing is that the user wont have a solid copy of it and it gives a different feeling towards to the user depending on the person itself.

Unlike EMI records where the user will be lead to a different window opening up to their special youtube page, Virgin Records have instead built-in their own section of playing music and videos of their artist in their website. The user have the option of playing the audio,video or just to purchase the artists song of their likes.

Home Page

Artist Page

Mailing List Pop-up

Releases Page

Music & Videos

EMI Records [ http://www.emirecords.co.uk/ ]

EMI are more of a record label which handles the artists and help in their promotion and development of the artist. They would provide information about the artists that are under their record label and the event listings and album releases. They also work with independent labels such as Heavenly and DFA Records.

For their website, the look and brand identity can be seen with the corporate colour being used in the layout. Design wise, it is interesting how they had made it look so simple but yet it can still catch peoples attention within the website. It is interesting of how they would just have to reuse the same page design throughout the whole website with only the content changing. They had just divided the page into three; 'Navigation','Sub Navigation' and 'Sub Section'. Navigation would contain the main navigations such as Home, About Us, Artists etc. whereas Sub Navi will appear once you have selected the option from Navigation. And Sub Section will show the content of it all.

They had only made two pages to open up into a new window which is the 'Youtube Channel' section and the 'Mailing List'.

The 'Youtube Channel' section is one of their special feature that they have included in the website which user are able to listen and watch the music videos of their artists in their specially designed youtube page.

The mailing list enables user to subscribe themselves to their newsletter to find out further information or updates about their artists that they like to their email.

Some disadvantages that I find in this website is the loading time. It takes awhile compared to the rest of the other competitor's website since this one uses flash. Therefore for users who for example are using dial-up or have slow internet connection might have difficulty to browse through this site. The loading page of when the user wants to jump from one page to another is interesting, but after awhile of looking at it, it somehow makes the user feel abit dizzy.
Another disadvantage is the font size that they use. It is abit too small for users to read through the large amount of text that they have provided especially for people who have bad eye sights. The white font colour doesnt really help either after awhile.

Home Page

Artists Page

Youtube Channel

Mailing List Page

Tower Records [ http://www.tower.com/ ]
For Tower Records, they are not just distributors of music, but are also handling videos and books as well. Therefore they attract additional crowds who are also interested in those kind of fields.
In their website, their layout runs throughout most of the pages and is pretty much consistent with showing the 'latest releases' and 'recommendations'. They have good control in the grid system of the website, and spacing it nicely so that the load of information won't look so cluttered or crowded. It is still easy for users to read and guides the user nicely since they would have a row of images of promos and artist's albums which acts as a 'pause' from the many text that are in the page. They have also good control of typography use, as most of it can be seen related to Tower Records because of the similar fonts that are used.
I like the fact that they put a navigation for the user to easily browse through the categories that are available such as in the Home Page, they give options for user to browse through the genre of Music, Videos, and Books. And when the user goes into the Music Page, at the same area which is at the left side of the screen, user are able to browse through either by Genre or by Formats(cds/Vinyls etc.)
Another good thing about it is that they included 'Top 100 CD Bestsellers' located at a small area of the page at the side. This enables user who are just browsing through to look for cds but arent sure of what to purchase to have a better insight of music choices that other people have chosen. This is one good advantage to deal with people who just go to the website to browse through and find out the latest trends of music.
I also like the fact that they have included a shopping cart for user to easily purchase through online and when they are done they just have to submit the order and it will be delivered to them. It is user-friendly as all the user has to do is click the 'Add To Bag' sign and it will be added to their purchases. If they do not want it, they can delete it before sending in the shipping orders.
Other special features that they have added to make the website interesting for user is that they have included a link to their own blog, where the user can get additional information about things that are related to music, books and videos.This would give user a more insightful and detailed info about things in a more casual way,instead of a more formal information delivered through the main website. They have also included newsletters which users can subscribe to to find out the latest news from them.
What I dont really agree on in the website is the additional information at the bottom part of the Home Page such as the 'Whats new around the Tower Store' and the 'Explore Great Tower Sales & Specials', since it is such a waste of space and sounds kind of repetitive of the information they have given at the upper part of the page.

Home Page

Home Page(bottom)

Music Page

Music Page(Top 100)

Shopping Cart Page

OKiDokie... this is my corporate website analysis.

Abbey Road Studios (http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/ )

Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio which handles various types of services such as recording & mixing, mastering, interactive expertise across all media formats such as blu-ray to web,and even asset management & supply. But their main service would be the recording & mixing, where they worked with some of the world's most celebrated artists, producers, composers and orchestras. Abbey Road Studios is the most famous recording studio complex in the world. The studios have been at the heart of the UK music industry for more than 75 years and have been the location of countless landmark recordings.

For their corporate website, it is obvious that they have fully used the corporate colour of the company which is manly black & white. The grid system is mostly consistent throughout the pages with abit of changes in some of the smaller contents.They gave a very simple, clean-cut website but added abit of edge to it with the availability of flash navigation in some of the pages. It adds abit of an interesting element to the website because user can also scroll through the flash navigation as a guide to the content in the website. For example in the Home page, they have given the user an option of seeing for information about their engineers, or they can read more about the various equipments they provide. They have also included an area below to place their updates of news, where user can read further more by clicking on it.

Eventhough the website has a square-ish feel to it and having mostly black & white, it does not feel as boring or too corporate looking as people would think it would be. In fact, it had made the website look even more slick and clean-cut, and it still has corporate look, but with an edge especially with the bits of flash navigation and control of typography throughout the website.

Leica Camera AG (http://en.leica-camera.com/home/)

Leica Camera AG is an international company in the optical industry, with its headquarters based in Solms, Germany, and a second location in Portugal. All products from the three divisions - Photography, Hunting Lenses and Nature Watching - have a shared mission: to deliver better images.

In their website, it was interesting to have the short flash video in the Home Page, where the user gets to introduced to the camera. They are also able to straight away be guided to the different cameras that Leica offers.

Eventhough the corporate colour is red and white, throughout the website they have just used the colour of white and grey, a really clean-cut and simplicity to it. They have the consistency of arrangements of the logo and the navigations, where the main navigation would be on top while the sub navigation would be at the left side. But because the background itself is the basic white and grey,and the logo is consistently in every page, the bright red & white would really stand out throughout the website so the user would know that that's the Leica corporate colour.

Basically the grid system works consistently throughout the content pages,except the Home page. The website is a really simple but pleasant looking, enough to deliver the content that they want towards the user.

Podspeakers (http://www.podspeakers.com )

Podspeakers is a company which produces good speakers with good designs. Podspeakers continues to impress HiFi enthusiasts with their unique design and impressive sound. What surprises most people is the fact that they were designed back in 1990 by a group of developers who were given the task of creating a set of untraditional speakers. The goal was to develop a high quality speaker with a unique design that people could afford to buy, and the result was astonishing – the Minipod series was born.

Throughout the whole website, the grid system is quite consistent in every page and the design of the content are consistent too, where the background design will always be a similar slick design and the content is centralized to fit without a long page.

Instead of having the boxes of the content area to be fully squared like the Abbey Road Studio website, they have made it to be a rounded corner box, to fully emphasize on their slick designs of speakers. For colours, they have used very limited colours of light grey,bright orange and abit of pale blue. This is because the colours that comes from their range of speakers would already catch the user's attention and would further attract the user to it.

I like how they would always have the area specifically saved for a flash banner area to show the different of speakers they have in most of the pages, and it's interesting as to how they would change the picture following the flow of the slick line of the background. This would make the website even more fun and not too boring with static pictures and text. I find that they have a good balance throughout the website in terms of colours, use of space and text.

yes, so are you guys SATISFIED NOW???
I changed my blogskin.ehehh.

It might encourage me to update more often. (I hope) no no. I WILL! =D

Well, ok let me start to explain alil why I picked a really simple blogskin; bcause my artwork that will be posted will make it prettier!!!!
Kidding...poyo-ness kicking in.

OK ok, so about the marketing & consumer behaviour(whatever), gonna do on WOOTS riiiiiiight.ehheheh. So here's our so-called logo. Which wasnt actually suppose to be the logo, but it somehow did. Need alot of improvements though.

I just took the bit from the banner here. But it is somewhat like that, with the paper aeroplane going on and all. The background is not necessary black, the other one is white..where the aeroplane would be pink and the "woots" would be black. And the "woots" is actually the dotted trail, you know like the trail on the treasure map kind of thing?heheh.

Further enquiries, sila contact me at... you guys should know. =P

eyeahh.so ok,only NOW I remembered on updating this blog.So, these are some of the final projects I've done for the terrible,disastrous, horrifying,(insert anymore fearful words...) 2nd year 2nd term. Thank God I got through it ALIVE.

Anyways, the first work here is my Website Design 1,project 2. We had to create a website displaying our desired tutorials to guide user step-by-step. Well, it was alot of research to do the darn thing. And I had to go through SO many changes of layout, but it turned out alright.

So abit of explanation on the website.(since u cant get the interaction here) My tutorial is based on creating DIY tshirts;silk screen,drawing, & sewing.(we were required to have 3 tutorials). I made the main website to be on a pop-up window. The buttons I used flash to create abit of animation when user roll-over. I even have abit of flash banner where the characters will pop up. And the tutorial page is a long page where user can scroll up & down. Further questions just ask me lah. nyekk =P

Enter page

Main page

About page

Tutorial page(Silk Screen)

Tutorial page(Hand Drawn)

Tutorial page(Sewing) Gallery page

Gallery page (rollover)

My next work is for my visual class final project.We had to do a storyboard for an Anti-Smoking campaign. Just a short ad that sort of thing. This is my first time handling the colouring using PC, so if it looks like crap, bear with me. =P