Web Design- 12/8. Project post. Elena Carroll

Web Design Rationale:

For my web page I decided to do it on the tiny preschool my mom works for in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is a non-profit school, and only has thirty students. Because the school is so small, it is almost unheard of, and difficult to raise money for. However, they do put together events such as bake sales to raise funds for the classrooms, supplies, computers, animals and other school materials. The event is very localized, and has very little national or other affiliation, so I found it difficult to find extra links to make, or to fill the pages with more material. The event does involve a preschool, so I decided to make it look cute and appeal to young children. The bake sale is on December 19^th, and it is a holiday sale so I also knew I wanted the spread to reflect winter and holiday treats. I took the logo for the preschool, scanned it in, and put in on the top of the page. So the rest of the page would not look blank and have awkward white space I added pictures of baked goods bought at the sale, edited them in Photoshop and pasted them on to the page. I also decided to align snowflakes down the sides of the pages to add extra winter decorations. I found the pictures on google, selected certain snowflakes, and pasted them down the sides.

For my colors I wanted it to have a winter feel, but not be an obvious red and green Christmas scheme. I went with a dark blue color of R: 41, G: 133, and B: 154. I also matched it with a lighter yellow color of R:27, G: 241, and B: 227. For my fonts I found one of Defonts that mimicked the handwriting of a child. It matched with the student drawings I found, and fit the site well. I made the body of the webpage Century Gothic so it would look clean and organized in contrast to the childish handwriting. The body also needed to be much more readable, so I needed a font that would not cause any confusion or look sloppy. I added pictures taken at the school while the children were there, and also added a contact page to get in touch with the teachers. For the selection bar I added gingerbread men to know when a user is selecting a tab. When the mouse runs over a tab, it changes to a brown/yellow color, and a gingerbread man appears next to the tab being selected. I also added a directions page to the location of the bake sale since it will not be held at the preschool. Also, to note the location I used a Christmas tree instead of the star Mapquest provides.

I wanted my website to look readable, clean and cute. It does not have a lot of links or extra features because the school is very simple. However, I wanted it to cause interest, and hopefully entice lookers to go to the sale, or maybe become interested in the school for their own children. I want the site to appear professional, safe, child-friendly, and impressive to prospective parents.