Thai Music
Turkish Music
Turkish Music 2
Danish Music

Baseball charge music
Baseball band music
Baseball electromusic
Baseball extra music

Final Webpage ReDesign

Here is my final wedpage design. I'm not in love with the look of it, but I am satisfied with it mainly because of all I learned from doing it. It was my first attempt at trying anything like this and I was able to use many different technologies I hadn't before and open myself up new design processes I had never experienced. So overall, I know that next time I'll be able to do something even better.

Final Paper

Abigail Menard
New Media II
Prof. Klinkowstein
5/13/08


“Everything that can be digital, will be.” This was the motto Craig Kanarick and Jeff Dachis were following when they founded their company, Razorfish, in 1995. By recognizing the potential future impact of digital technology, Craig and Jeff were able to create a company that would thrive over the next 5 years. Razorfish was an interactive marketing and technology services firm based in New York and one of the founding members of the area known as Silicon Alley. The firm’s early success grouped it with four other fast growing e-consulting companies and they became known as “The Fast Five;” however, by 2000 “The Fast Five” was strongly affected by a negative turn in Internet marketing, and Razorfish’s revenues fell. In 2004 Razorfish was acquired by SBI Group then subsequently by aQuantive, a large Seattle based advertising agency, in the same year. Thus from the union of Razorfish, the largest interactive marketing and technology services firm and Avenue A, the largest buyer of online media and search, Avenue A | Razorfish was born. Microsoft also recently acquired aQuantive in 2007, making it a wholly owned subsidiary, and therefore adding Avenue A | Razorfish to the Microsoft family.
With the pooled resources of Avenue A and Razorfish, Avenue A | Razorfish has blossomed into one of the largest interactive agencies in the United States. It serves to better the advertising outreach of many well-known companies through their use of digital technologies. Some of the larger companies Avenue A | Razorfish has done work for include Best Buy, Capital One, Dell, JCPenney, Microsoft, Nike, Toyota, Visa, and many more. With Avenue A | Razorfish ‘s creative processes none of these companies seemed disappointed and Visa is even quoted as stating, “Working with them has encouraged us to push for new boundaries in the marketing promotions arena. Their strategic thinking always makes me think that no matter what the problem, we can find a solution.” Avenue A | Razorfish offers sample works of many of its clients on its website, as well as some breakdowns of how they solved the problems individual companies presented.
As far how Avenue A | Razorfish has such a successful company and such satisfied customers, it is because they believe I developed a client’s website from all facets and not just one. The have 5 different categories in which they focus their attention: interactive marketing, customer focused websites, e-commerce, intranets and extranets, and branding and identity. By concentrating their skills and resources on the company, the customers, the products, the employees, and the brand Avenue A | Razorfish gives their clients a full makeover to better their companies. Avenue A | Razorfish especially focuses on customers. Their extensive research into the client, target audience, an digital outreach provides them with knowledge, but then they apply their skills to make it work to their client’s advantage. Their goal is to bring their customer closer to their target audience and they do this through their process called the Customer Experience Journey. Through their six-step plan that integrates technology and consumers they believe they are able to access the best resources of the Internet and apply them in the ways that are most advantageous to both the company and consumer. Overall Avenue A | Razorfish was first able to successfully take advantage of the growing digital market and continued to improve upon its use of the resources the digital market provided in order to constantly better all facets of the company and customer experience.

Banner Ad/Events Page

Here is what my banner ad will look like. I', pretty pleased with the way it turned out, but I'm not sure I quite yet enjoy how it looks with the website.




Here is what my events page will look like. It is not as developed as I wish it was, but I spent too much time on other things I suppose, so I just ran at of time at the end.

Animated Gif

This is the sandal flower that will be animated in my banner ad:













The animation will be each of the individual flip fliops appearing to for a full flower.

Pop Up Window Video

It took me a really long time to find a video that was Quicktime, was of good quality, and at least somewhat applied to my site. Here is the one I found and it works pretty well with my site.

Nussbaum Review #2

This time I decided to review a Nussbaum post on How to Educate a Designer. As a student in design and someone who is graduating in the next year, it is opbviously a concern of mine to see what the thoughts are on educating desginers. As Nussbaum mentions, educating designers is a relatively new process and they're still working it out. It was interesting to read how their looking into educating desginers on how to think different and how different countries, such as Japan, educate their designers even differently than that.

Core 77 Review

So Core 77 is definitely a website with a lot to offer, but a little challenging to navigate. There seems to be some mcuh to look at all the time, you would have to constantly be checking back in order to get updated on everything. So the fist blog title that I could fully comprehend and caught my interest was on Concrete Tableware (4/30/08). Although it doesn;t have a ton to do with web design, or even the design I'm necessarily looking inot, it was definitely something that caught my eye. It shouws how innovative design are, and need to be, in order to come up with new idea that will be orginal, effective and make use of an resource not tapped into yet.
I was also intrigued that the blog article imeediately following this one was on an Art Exhibition; and the one even after that was one a new furniture manufacturing facility. Now as much as I understand the chronological purpose of a blog, it was a little overwhelming to have to jump through topic that weren't completely displayed on the page and had almost nothing to do with eachother except they were about design. Anyway, the art exhibition was for the artist Ettore Sottsass and I would have really likeed to go see it, given more time. It sounded like she was featuring many interesting design pieces, furniture and others, that would be something that would only enhance my design education. Thus I have decided that, although schoolwork is important and I should do well in it, I need to focus more on whats going on in the outside world of design as to better my prepare and educate myself.

Final Homepage Redesign

I finally finished my redesign of Zappos.com. It took me a long time to really get something down that I liked, but overall I'm okay with it. I think I could have maybe gone in a different direction an been happier, but overall this was a learning experience so at least now I can learn the processes to finish it! Here is the site in its "off" state:

NM II Paper Research

Avenue A | Razorfish
Background
1. an "interactive services firm "
helps companies use internet to better their marketing and thus their business
2. resources = "data, insight-driven design, leading technologies and rigorous optimization"
3. created July 24, 2004 from a merge between:
-Razorfish which was "the largest interactive marketing and technology services firm" and
-Avenue A which was "the largest buyer of online media and search"
4. Clark Kokich = current CEO ("Razorfish's experienced leadership team is composed of senior-level executives in business development, advertising, direct-response marketing, technology consulting, and finance.")

Work
1. well known customers = visa, best buy, dell, ralph lauen, red bull, toyota, nike, microsoft, etc, etc, etc
2. Specific example company case study breakdowns, including challenges posed, how the company solved said challenge, and the impact it had for the company: Red Bull, Visa, Carnival
2. customer example work: Toyota
Pringles
JCPenney
4. 2008 involvement: Internet Advertising Competition, RxClub Awards, AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs,AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs, AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs, Crain's NY Top Consultants, Inspire Awards

Creative Perspective
1. main goal is using their tools and resources to bring their client closer to their audience
2. philosophy = Customer Experience Journey, which consists of 6 sub philosophys:

1. The Internet is essential. 2. Channels must be integrated. 3. Understanding is key to success..

4. Users rule. 5. Creativity and technology must work together. 6. There is always room for improvement.

2. customer process:
-campaigns or sites reflect the knowledge accumulated on company's target audience.
-translate brand online using a "comprehensive team of media planners and buyers, search specialists, designers, rich interface developers, information architects and content strategists"

I'm a Blogger??? (Sam Godin Blog Review)

So one of the first posts I saw on Seth Godin's blog was titled "Where to Begin?" (posted on 3/31/08) and was all about being a blogger. Until class this semester I had not really been exposed to blogging since the inception of "LiveJournal" back when I was in like 9th grade. So of course I was interested in Seth's post about how bloggers tend to think, or at least, how he, as a blogger, tends to think. He explains how there is a dichotomy between loyal blog readers who may have kept up on every post for the past several years, and those "first-timers" who have just happened upon a blog for the first time. With this dichotomy comes the question of who do you write for?... Something quick and new for the loyal or something with history and depth for the first-timer. Reading this post got me thinking that there must be ever more levels and types of people to impress. For example, the "first-timer" could be someone like myself, discovering the world of blogging for literally the first time, or it could be a seasoned blogger who just happened upon one particular blog for the first time. Or it could be someone who followed one blog religiously, but then got a promotion, or a significant other, or something equally time consuming, thus causing them to miss a few months or more of blogging and now what kind of blog they're returning too. The millions of blogs and millions of people out there provide an endless supply of every kind of blogger.
So since this topic interested me I looked at another post, titled Write Like a Blogger (4/7/08), in which Seth gives 9 basic steps on how to successfully write a blog. Again, I was intrigued that there was actually a process to writing a blog, let alone one that someone thought to give instructions. On the other hand, with the amount of blogs out there, a good amount are definitely not written well. Seth brought up several good points, that although sometimes seemed obvious and basic, were well thought out and would contribute the success of one's blog overall. So from all of this reading and writing on, in, and about blogs I realized that I too am now a blogger. And despite the fact that this may be a short lived venture for class, I hav definitely rediscovered the world of bloggers and am now equipped to properly visit, rate, an enjoy any blog.

Review of "NussbaumOnDesign" Post

So I was sifting through the categories on Bruce Nussbaum's Business Week design blog, NussbaumOnDesign, trying to pick out a post, when one caught my eye. As a Target "Team Member" (a.k.a. employee) for 2 summers, I have always found the inner working of the the Target creative team intriguing; so I decided to investigate Nussbaum's category on target design. There was in fact only one post, titled Target is a great design innovator; in which Nussbaum discusses Target's ability to "really get design." He cites their commitment to reinventing and redesigning new products, specifically their improved medicine bottles. Although I have seen and handled their medicine bottles I never contemplated where they originated. Nussbaum informs his readers that the design came from a student at New York's School of Visual Arts, named Deborah Adler who was connected to Target through the AIGA. I have to agree with Nussbaum, who feels that Target's attention to students and new graphic designers is one thing that puts them ahead of the game. Corporation shouldn't discount students and young people just because of their lack of experience. Of course designers with age and experience are definitely valuable, but one might miss out on innovative ideas from new designers; after all, creativity isn't based on experience.

Beginning Logo Designs

This is the current logo for Zappos.com, the website I am redesigning.

This is my first, and most favorite idea. It's just a rough design using a web image and a regular font, but it conveys the direction I want to go towards.








After deciding that the first design was maybe a bit too sophisticated for the Screenager generation, I tried to go for a younger appeal. By incorporating shoelaces I thought I could get a younger look, while still maintaining the focus of the website.




After realizing that the shoelace design was not going easily read and was a little boring, I decided to still go with a younger look, but a bolder design. This is the final logo design I decided on. I think the bright, bold colors will attract the Screenager generation, but I was still able to incorporate the footprints to tie in the whole basis of the website.

Re-Design Reference Sites

Here are the five sites I chose to use as references for my Zappos.com website redesign:

Yahoo.com
When I asked my suitemate Michelle which site she enjoyed visiting, this is the one she chose. She said she liked this site because there was a wealth of information that was organized well.

CosmoGIRL.com
When I asked my other suitemate Alex which site she enjoyed visiting, she choose this one.
She said she liked all the bright colors and pictures because it make the site easier to navigate.


Nike.com
I chose this site because it is a shoe site that successfully appeals to both men and women. I especially liked that the site had a minimalist appeal with a large amount of graphics.

OldNavy.com
I chose this site because it has a clean, simple design accented by a basic color pallette. The OldNavy logo is subtled repeated in the muted gray-blue of the background, that also helps the bright blue and yellow stand out.

Fredflare.com
I really liked the multitude of bold, solid colors on this site. There's a lot of information and color, but by using colors of the same tone and only contrasting them with black and white it still appears organized.

Website Re-Design

I have chosen to re-design Zappos.com, to make it more appealing to today's demanding show shoppers. Zappos.com offers high-end shoes at a discounted price, but the website looks too "cheap" itself to properly attract avid buyers. I would like to give the over crowded, informal, unpolished site a cleaner, bolder, and more accessible appearance that will contribute to a better shopping experience.

Screenager/Gen. Y/ Gen-Next/Millenial/A What??

Prior to having to research the term "screenager" I had never realized my generation had a name, let alone had been given a description, and was being researched, discussed, and analyzed by the other generations at large.
Here are a few sites that give a general overview of what exactly "we" are:
Wikipedia's definition of a Screenager
Wikipedia's defintion of Generation Y
ScreenagerCentral.com's definition of a Screenager
TechEncyclopedia.com's defintion of a Screenager

Also, here are some articles analyzing and educating the masses on our generation:
USA Today: "Generation Y: They've arrived at work with a new attitude"
Business Week: "Generation Y"
NY Times: The Lives of Teenagers Now: Open Blogs, Not Locked Diaries

I have to say the the definitions are pretty accurate; citing our constant need to be connected to anything and everything is multiple ways, at multiple times. The articles also made me see that we are a new generation with different views, styles, needs, and opinions... and that since we seem determined for it all the be done our way, maybe the world is having trouble adapting to us.