Sabrina Hirsch
September 22, 2015
Module 2
1. Identify at least one instance of the four CRAP principles on the site.
(See Image A)
o C: This alum (Allegra Smith), uses both color and texture as a way of
contrasting items on her website. As you can see from the image, she
uses a dark purple for the background, and a very faint gray for her
biography on her home page. On the dark purple background she uses
white text, and on the gray biography she uses a very dark grey text. This
dark gray color is repeated at the top of her home page for the tabs for
different pages on her site. Further, there is a muted diagonal stripe on the
background of both the site and her biography section. The two are
divided via a zig zag edge between the colors. Both of these textures lend
greater contrast to her site.
o R: Allegra repeats her color scheme and font scheme across her website,
using the same fonts and dark purple, light purple, white, and gray
throughout. Further, she says in her biography that she is "fueled by
curiosity, feminism, and a bottomless cup of tea." As you can see in the
image, there is a teapot next to her name/the title of her site, and on the
bottom she has individual tea cup click-throughs as her contact and social
media links.
o A: Allegra's title/header is aligned with the social media links at the bottom
of the page. Her short biography is centered, and above that (also
centered) is a three-slide animation showing some of her research and
achievements.
o P: Allegra's site is very well designed in terms of proximity. Nothing is too
close that it feels crowded, and nothing is so far apart that it seems empty.
There is a decent amount of blank space on her homepage, but especially
with the textures and color schemes, it feels very balanced.
2. Choose one aspect of the site’s graphic design that you find visually appealing.
Analyze this using CRAP – why is it pleasing? What choices did the designer
make that make it pleasing?
(See Image B)
o C: As with all other pages on her site, Allegra's "About" page carries on
the same color/font/texture scheme, as well as the teapot/tea cup theme.
Because the body of this page is much bigger, you can really see the
connection of gray carried throughout the tab header and the text in the
body of the page. The dark purple is carried through the text of hyperlinks
in the body of the page, which contrasts nicely with the dark purple
header, light purple background, and dark gray text.
o R: Again, the color/font/texture schemes as well as the teapot/tea cup
theme are carried on through this page as it is on all other pages of the
site.
o A: The title/header, left margin of the body text, and bottom social media
links are all aligned, which is very clean. The right margin of the body text
aligns with the right margin of the footer, which when looked at with the left
margin as a whole is very balanced.
o P: Overall I like the spacing on this page. I like how the photograph of
Allegra is squared in the body text. It flows nicely without feeling like it is
impeding. The only criticism I have here is that there is quite a bit of empty
space in the body of the page before the footer.
3. Repeat step B, but identify the feature you find least appealing, and discuss how
the designer could use CRAP principles to improve it.
(See Image C)
o C: As this page repeats the contrast of all the other pages, I enjoy it.
o R: Again, the color/font/texture scheme is repeated nicely, as is the
teapot/tea cup theme.
o A: Everything is aligned in one collective left margin, which feels very
ordered and organized.
o P: There is too much blank space in the body of this page. There is very
little in the body to begin with (the entire body section is just two links to
research pages), and then there is once again a large gap between the
body and the footer. She could improve this by maybe making the page
have two columns, one for each research project she has. This could also
include a blurb about what each project is about as well as a graphic,
because just from looking around her site I know there are graphics with
both research projects.
4. If you were to mimic or replicate one aspect of your alum’s design on your own
portfolio, what would it be and why?
(See Image A)
o I really love the tea theme. It's something small, but it has a nice personal
touch to it. One would only have to look at the page without reading
anything to assume that Allegra likes tea. Tying that to the blurb about her
in the body of the page where she likes tea makes it feel connected and
personal. I've seen something like this before, but it always seems to be
either a typewriter or a quill for writers. I would like to come up with
something that I think embodies a trait like that of myself and is also more
unique to make me stand out from other people in the same field.
Image A
Image B
Image C