Michael Corballis
Natcoll Portfolio

Real Recycling JavaScript, Design.

A more orthodox approach to webpage design, this assignment also was a test on all client-side technologies including extensive javascript, particularly in the feedback form. The colours are in an autumnal woodland theme (although I added a cactus because I like them) and it looks good and works well on a variety of browsers, platforms and screen sizes.

Flash Brief (Mice in Space) Macromedia Flash, ActionScript

A Flash advertisement for a breakfast cereal.

Deathrobot

Assignment Five, Industry Project

A possible business website. On this server, your credit-card number will be accepted if it is an even number and declined if it is odd, so you won't need to use a real one.

Assignment Four, Server-side, PHP and MySQL.

Your Page

The brief was to create something useful for a classroom of web developers. I took this challenge and wanted to find an idea that I could really use myself. I struggled with that very question but I was pleased with my idea of a page of tools users can choose and customize, sitting behind other windows on the desktop with a variety of useful functions, convenient for people to flick to when they need it. Maybe one could be a Flash colour wheel that chooses colour matches according to the various theories. But because this was an exercise in PHP and MySQL, it wasn't appropriate to programme in Flash or JavaScript, since that wouldn't be marked, so it was stripped bare to its engine. Now that it's finished, though, I can add more although I'm a little uninspired as to what tools to add...

One Man Band Design and Usability

Because this was an exercise in design, I wanted to do something special. I believe my unorthodox approach to this design is a good thing, thinking "outside the square", searching to do something truly creative and original, although possibly I should have done something that people in the web industry are more familiar with.

The "one man band" brief was for a small one-man/one-woman business. The tutor liked my idea for a one-man musical band (like Bob Dylan) and he is successful in business, having sold enough records to make ends meet. Basically the appeal of popular music to me is the individuality and freedom of expression represented by characters such as The Beatles. The artwork such people used in album covers, books, collaborations with cartoonists, movies and posters has often been quite random in a fantasy world. Sometimes it's totally weird, but music can be used to enhance any film or artistic endeavour so there is no one type of design that can be associated with a musician. That would be bland and formulaic.

Maybe influenced by Jimi Hendrix's love of Science Fiction, my One-Man Band, called Gordon, is placed in a 3-dimensional alien swamp and the visitor is encouraged to spend time there, absorbing the melancholy of this alien world, slowly noticing its subtle details. Many websites are mainly an advertising presence for a company, but sometimes a website can be entertaining in itself. The blank browser window is like the blank canvas, capable of anything. If my client were a law firm or bank, the design would be more conventional, so that customers know where they are, although I would be amused by a lawyer in his suit standing knee-deep in an alien bog. It might be forward-thinking...