Evaluation of Peer's Written Brief

Working for a client has both its pros and cons. In some ways the client is always right, as it is your job to please them with the work you produce. However, you have a reputation to uphold and if the work you have created for them isn’t to your standard or taste, then it is going to lead future clients to create a false representation of you.

Following this, the written brief of a peer can be seen below:

Dear Nathan,

I would liked you to create a website aimed around a career for myself in camera operating. There are a few things I’d love to have implemented onto the website. A new trend at the moment is the scroll down function on a website where everything is on one page so to speak, I’d love to have something similar!

Secondly, I’d preferably liked the website to be quite simple and easy to navigate so it can be easily accessible by a range of people. Look forward to see it!

Best wishes,

Henry Board

<via email>

On reflection of this brief, there are a few things to be noted. Firstly the brief is fairly vague with no actual notion of what Henry would like to be included. For example, experience, recent work and education aren’t mentioned, which should really be top of the list for a freelance camera operator. Instead Henry has noted what design implementations are wanted throughout.

In regards to the design implementations, the mentioning in the brief of a ‘scroll down function’ relates to ‘parallax websites’. Parallax scrolling is a big website trend at the moment which involves the background moving at a slower rate to the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll. When done correctly it provides a subtle element of depth (Awwwards.com, 2016).

This first image to right shows the opening home-screen of the website through a wireframe. As with most wireframes, the actual design is basic and in this case, very simplistic with respect to the actual brief. The first home-page has four separate links to different areas of the site; about, experience, showreels and contact. These individual links were chosen following research into a variety of different freelance camera operators' websites

Image: Home-page of website and 'about' page wireframe

To the right is a screenshot of freelance camera operator AIden's Metcalfe's homepage. You can clearly see inspiration has been taken from this as a starting point for the wireframe of Henry's brief. The inclusion of a tab with different links is both simplistic and easy to follow, therefore widening the target market.

Image source: http://www.aidanmetcalfe.co.uk/

To the left is the second of third and fourth wireframes for the website. As you can see the parallax design to the website runs throughout, which relates back to Henry wanting that in. Also included is a different range of showreels aimed towards different type of camera work including; music videos, documentaries and short films. This idea was taken from another freelance camera operators website - Phil Gurney (2016).

Image: 'Experience' and 'Showreel' pages of website

The final page of the website and the last wireframe and be seen to the right. The contact page is very basic, yet again relating back to the brief. The final element to note is the inclusion of a reocurring side bar throughout the parallax website. This concept draws inspiration from French restaurant 'Le Mugs' (2016) which also uses the parallax design.

Image: final 'Contact' page of website

On final reflection, using a wireframe is extremely helpful for a number of reasons.

References

Awwwards.com. (2016). Best Parallax Websites | Web Design Inspiration. [online] Available at: http://www.awwwards.com/websites/parallax/ [Accessed 16 Feb. 2016].

Gurney, P. (2016). Phil Gurney - Freelance Lighting Cameraman. [online] Philgurney.com. Available at: http://www.philgurney.com/ [Accessed 16 Feb. 2016].

Metcalfe, A. (2016). Welcome. [online] Aidan Metcalfe | Freelance Lighting Cameraman | Leeds. Available at: http://www.aidanmetcalfe.co.uk/ [Accessed 16 Feb. 2016].