Research and Planning; Website 3

Genre: Music, TV Shows

Audience: 15-30

MTV is a popular music channel/website distributed all over the world. Its one of the leading channels that air both Music and TV shows such as Jersey Shore and the Official UK Chart. 

My Opinion: when getting onto the site at first, you're greeted by a nice colour scheme or white, pink and purple. Although the background of the girl isn't relevant to the site, it isn't too busy, too bright or distracting. The famous white MTV logo is displayed against the dark background so it sticks out at you. Just like Empire, it has a massive range of links on the navigation bar, offering you a huge variety of subjects depending on whether you want to read about the latest chart update, show gossip or movie gossip. 

The layout is one of my favourite from the 3. It has a slideshow up the top showing you the latest, most popular news. Underneath that are 3 columns divided into News, Music and Shows - basically giving you everything you need on the front. They use bright colours to separate the 3 subjects and include relevant photos to catch your eye. 

I like the way this website has been put together, they don't use any over the top colours, busy backgrounds or heaps of links (like Empire did, it became overwhelming.) Its clean, easy to read, simple to navigate around and the whole look appeals to the young age range of 15-30. It's also unisex, offering something for everyone. Also, when clicking on different links, the backgrounds change so theres something new wherever you go, making you interested to look further. When designing my website, I will look closely at MTV. 

Research & Planning - Website 2.

Genre: Tv Shows, Comedy, Reality

Scheduling: All day, everyday

Audience: 15-25

E4 is the sister channel of Chanel 4 and Film 4, aimed at the younger generation. Mainly showing young soaps such as Hollyoaks, comedies like The Inbetweeners and The IT Crowd, E4 is one of the most popular and up-coming channels for younger people. 

My opinion: When visiting the homepage of the website, I'm looking for easy navigation and interesting links to catch my attention. With only 6 links on the navigation bar, you're not overwhelmed with choice and each is specific to a certain subject. As well as the navigation bar, you have separate links on the right and below leading to pages such as TV shows, listings, latest videos from shows and gossip on the shows. The site and channel is pretty unisex: offering a wide range of subjects that attract girls, boys or both. The purple is also unisex, standing out to attract your eye and the big purple 4 is a trademark for the channel.

This website is very easy to navigate around. You can find everything you need a more, it holds a lot of information on certain things and provides entertainment in games as well as articles, videos and gossip. The layout is very simple, clear and clean. The background isn't too busy, and its a shot from one of their adverts aired on their E4 channel.

As well as all the things they provide, they also support new, upcoming artists and actors whether you're a graphic designer, director or drama actor. 

Research and Planning - Website 1.

www.empireonline.com

Genre: Films (Trailers, Spoilers, Reviews etc.)

Scheduling: Constant, a-joining m synergises agazine is monthly. 

Audience/Age range: No age range as such, aimed at Film lovers of any age.

Empire Online is basically the online version of the monthly magazines, which you can buy literally anywhere. Empire Magazine is the popular leading film magazine aimed at Film lovers of any age. Both website and magazine synergises together to deliver up to date news about new, old and upcoming films, as well as up and coming actors, directors, producers etc.

My opinion. The website itself is simple to use. Being a film lover myself, I found it easy to navigate. The navigate bar at the top holds 12 main links, making information spread widely and faster to find. As well as the navigation bar, there are many many sub-links that lead to you single pages specific to the film/article you want. On the home page alone, there are hundreds of links so you're not spending all your time trawling through pages, making life easier - therefore I think the layout of the columns, the choice of sub-headings/links and more information stored on the home page is a great and effective idea for my own website, although at times it does look messy and overwhelming.  

The design side of the website is simple, with the main background a simple black, the column backgrounds white and the writing either black or red - red relating to the Empire logo, which is almost a trademark. I like the design, you're not bombarded with masses of colour and patterned backgrounds, complicated layouts and un-readable fonts. It lets you get straight to the point, and I will use this simple design for my own website. The colours are also quite asexual, no pinks or blues, so its a neutral website aimed for any sex or age. 

Timeplan

Research & Planning

For my A2 Foundation Portfolio, I am producing my own website using KompoZer aimed at teenagers. My website will include many pages and links related to music, gossip, competitions, films and more.

Using a time plan, I will keep up to date with the 4 elements of Research & Analysis, Planning, Construction and my Evaluation. Firstly I will study other students websites and popular ones such as 'Empire' or 'NME', for inspiration and ideas for my own. I will then go on to study small bits like layouts, photos used, information and writing techniques.

To produce my website I will be using KomoZer, Adobe Photoshop CS5 and other smaller programs.