An epic day's work

Wow, the mind boggles.  It's past pumpkin time and I've been working hard all day, but I'm so happy with the site's progress!

How the site looked at midnight

Let's break it down.

Site updates:

• Added painted background, and duplicated same here on the blog
• Cleared out nearly all test pages and images, created final structure
• Updated menus accordingly
• Corrected dynamic content of 'about' page

Slideshow mechanism updates:

• Now starts 'stopped' for the convenience of the user - can play or explore manually
• uses custom menu buttons to better fit the feel of the site

However, creating this chart was the main work of the day.  I created a script, storyboarded it roughly in ever-reliable biro, then worked on the visual style.  After a lot of experimentation, I painted eight frames of animation, looking at views of planetary motion from Aristotle to Newton. 

Turns out it's a tad tricky to illustrate abstract concepts involving the dance of celestial objects using watercolour (at least it is if you're doing it in a hurry).

Frankly, it's rather crude.  It isn't half as pretty as I had hoped, and the transitions in the text are blunt, though to be fair this is a pretty simple case.  I had originally intended to continue toward the present, examining Mars through telescopes, flypasts, and ultimately the rovers, but it seemed more satisfying to end the discussion where I did - far neater, consistent in focus and hopefully within the attention span of an audience.  I think a longer presentation would need to contain more detail.

A key point I need to work on both for modifying this text and for creating the next one, is that the images must be carefully sized and cropped to fit the site.  That frustrating side-bar is my nemesis again, and is driving me barmy.  I might consider, for the next animation, attempting to remove the background paper texture and having animated illustrations grow through the text, as per my original notion.

I do think, however, that this crude demonstration shows the validity of my idea.  It's neat, keys in to familiar visual cues, and I think puts the point across quite neatly.  I'm looking forward to improving on this as I create the next one.

Notes for the creation of the next chart:

• Paint delicate, stand-alone images without backgrounds
• Size images consistently
• Create a custom-sized document - in Photoshop if possible
• Match the text colour to that of the site (explain choices/)
• Ideally, put together in Photoshop instead of OpenOffice Draw!

 Further modifications to be made to the site itself:

• Improve the visual identity by adding a site logo/tagline/image and/or replacing the title
• Add side bar to static pages, if possible
• Make background of posts and pages translucent white to improve readability
• Correct sizing of sidebar
• Populate 'about' pages with stuff I've been drafting

Perhaps most importantly of all, I need to check that this blog is actually telling you what you need to know!