Home Page to Portfolio Piece

The viewer will arrive at the portfolio site to Paisley's Pub sandwiched between some brick buildings. Enter through the pub door to the portfolio wall, then select individual items that lead to the travel journal on a pub table.

Details of the home page that need to be worked out: illustration of the pub and buildings, a blackboard sign in front that links to the pint size blog, and links to contact and about us. Possibilities I am looking at are:

Door ~ enters to portfolio wall (Paisley's Corner)

Sign ~ enters to about us/CV

Phone Booth ~ links to contact

Cat ~ Social media

Arrows on subsequent pages ~ move you to see more of the portfolio wall as the portfolio grows and to the black board to connect with the pint size blog (see earlier sketches).

Home Page

Portfolio Page

Individual Portfolio Page

Site Navigation

Campaign

Rough ideas to engage my target audience to look at and interact with portfolio site. Mail out key pub items: coasters with images from the pub wall, square napkin with writing on it, pint size glasses. They say that if you are mailing something the odder the size, the more likely the item has to sit on the top of the recipients mail box, and thus more likely to be looked at. The coasters are interesting, because they could act a business card at functions like the BCAMA SIG's or speaker series where the advertisers and studio creatives tend to frequent.

Coasters in the hands of the target audience - who then visit the website - who then tweet and forward onto their colleagues and friends.

The Pint Size blog and Twitter - constantly update viewers on what's new. The blog would not only highlight the latest portfolio pieces, but what's new and hot in marketing and design, notable mentions.

Flickr - one possibility is to connect the pub experience with a larger audience. It's something that people all over the world enjoy. This will need to be flushed out further.

Paisley Pub or Paisley's Pub

Using "Because" as my website layout inspiration I like the idea of giving the viewer the ability to interact with the site and the movement to other pages flow horiztonally.

Possible home page where the pub image has some flash element that then shrinks the image and moves to reveal the inside of the pub, or zooms in on the pub sign, or the door opens and moves inside the pub. Bottom bar acts as a Quick view of the menu if the viewer chooses not to interact and wants to quickly find the information they are looking for.

Home page viewer can click on the phone for contact, bar tender for CV/Bio, and click right or left to move to the next screens.

Movement to the right to reveal Portfolio Pieces. As more portfolio pictures are added the wall can just keep growing to the right.

Viewer clicks on one of the wall features and it takes them to the specific portfolio piece:

Move to the left for the blog and social media "Pint Size" marketing:

Viewer clicks one of the beers or cocktails and it takes them to the blog.

Experiential Websites

I did a bit of research on experiential websites. Here's few that set good examples for what I'd like to accomplish with this project:

Because

Grolsch Beer

Eric J

Concept #1 - Additions to the Pub Concept

Over the break. I did some further exploration of the each of the concepts. I found that with the Icecream menu and patterns concepts, I was struggling to connect each concept to my portfolio. On the other hand the pub concept seems to have multiple directions and a stronger experience factor for the viewer.

The idea would be to start the home page as a typical English street. As an example, I've attached a pen and ink painting of Cirencester, England by my grandfather. The viewer would move through the street and go into pub #1, the Garnet Rose, pub #2 the Fox & Hound, or pub #3 the Yellow Bell. Each pub has it's unique features that I would relate to my portfolio.

Garnet Rose - Branding

Fox & Hound - Typography

Yellow Bell - Marketing

Here's some possible directions that I need to further explore this week to create an experience within each pub.

Concept #1 - Pub or Pub Signs

The 60's postcard/photo idea wasn't working, so as I brainstormed further I remembered that "English Pubs" have always something I've enjoyed. I remembered that pubs tend to have these really cool signs, usually hand painted. There's loads of history around those signs (talking about early branding). The pubs themselves these traditional identifiers like the dark wood beams and posts, dark wooden furniture, crazy patterned carpets, interesting embossed wall paper, funny looking locals, various of beers (stouts, porters, and lagers) on tap, local cat, distinctive wall hangings, pub food (meat pies, plowmans lunch, roast and mash, etc). I decided to explore this concept further.

First option:

Use the sign of the pub as the entrance. Access various parts of the portfolio through the various parts of the pub (man, dog, beer levers, carpet, dart board, etc.)

Second option:

Use the sign to enter the site and then use the beer levers to access the various parts of the portfolio.

A third option I explored was creating pub signs for each part of the portfolio:

Concept #2 - Ice Cream Truck/Dickie Dee Menu

I was exploring brands that I've been loyal to, since I was a kid (of the 70's). I remembered the ice cream truck, with its distinctive tune, that would bring people running out of their homes and gardens on a hot summer day just for a treat. There's always a positive memory about this experience, so I thought it might be interesting to use the menu and draw people into the various parts of my portfolio.

Concept #3 - Pattern Exploration

Here's my third concept. This one was fun, because it was an exploration of famous patterns and finding ways to merge/integrate them into one design because, marketing and design together consist of the overlapping and merging of multiple elements. I thought this could be incorporated into the home page where the viewer could run their curser over the patterns. The curser would change indicating that you can click on a particular pattern and move into the portfolio pages.

Viewers would then move into the various portfolio areas. Notional thoughts are:

Early Concept Ideas

From the brainstorming here's some early concepts:

1) Plant/flower - I hate to lose or kill a plant. If someone gives me a plant, it's important to me to keep them alive. Have a plant in a pot grow as more projects are added to the portfolio. Designs, marketing, sustainable work, and feedback from clients all represent the things that help this plant grow into a healthy blooming plant. Watch it grow theme.

2) Paisley pattern - with the love of textures, colours, fabrics, etc, use the simple paisley to represent various parts of the porfolio. Perhaps the paisley grows into other famous patterns like argyle, tartan and so forth to represent various parts of my work whether marketing or design focused.

3) Moped/Scooter Diaries - link to my love of vintage Europe. Best mode of transportation to get around in European towns (Italy, Greece, etc.). Could it be the Moped Diaries?

4) 60's vintage torn pieces of a photograph or postcard (sepia/faded colour) pieced together for each part of the portfolio that come together as one picture (one part from Zambia, England, Canada, Greece)

5) Outfits: Try one on! Select an outfit to represent parts of the portfolio (casual, business, formal).

More Brainstorming

Brainstorming

Common things that are coming out of this is the constant need to pull different elements together (textures, patterns, colours) and create something that looks balanced, pleasing to the eye, and people notice it. I do this with food, clothes, decorating, and design. I love looking at the J Crew catalogue and fell in love with their European themes (Scotland, France, and Italy) in 2008. I noticed that Stella Artois 60's looking European commercials have a similar look and feel. Possibly a vintage, nostalgia thing going on there. I seriously want to work for J Crew in a regional marketing role WHEN they come to Canada.

J Crew images from the Spring and Summer of 2008 that I love...

Stella Artois commercials I love ...

Personal Data Points

Portfolio Pieces

Thrombosis (Type Camp)

Wordplay Book Project (Type II)

ID 2 Sierra Design Logo

& Recent Client Logo

BC chapter of the American Marketing Association

(BCAMA) electronic & printed brochures

Studio II Norco Bikes guerilla campaign

Pineapple Grenades For Further Exploration

Catch annoying celebrities in the act and take them out with juicy pineapple grenades.

It could be cool catching unsuspecting young stars off guard with sticky messy pineapple grenades.

Project 1 ID3: Pineapple Punch Challenges

Selecting your opponent(s): I like how friends or potential opponents are displayed on the Nanovor site. In the Pineapple Punch it would be great to follow a similar direction.

Possible Game Challenges:

Project 1 ID3: The Characters

Nanovor illustrations: great examples of cartoon characters who look like teenagers.

Teenage Superhero (Male)

Teenage Superhero (Female)

Little Zac Effron

Taylor Momsen

Project 1 ID3: Campaign Map & Home Page

The home page will need to have some sort of animation in a similar direction to the following sites:

Website proposed layout:

Example of a Facebook Application Page & You Tube Page: