Part 1

My name is Daly Derwenskus, and I am studying Graphic Design with a minor in Visual Communication. A lot of my work as well as experience has been centered around website design. I chose Graphic Design because this was one of the areas I personally struggled with, and wanted to improve upon. The goal I have in mind is to be able to create my own graphics for my websites in the future. This can include banner designs, advertisement designs, and product thumbnails among other things. 

This first piece was designed for Kapaa High School’s Athletics Department in Hawaii. It was a seasonal e-commerce site created on Squarespace with basic CSS integrations. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets that allows people to further design and style a website. It’s essentially the process of styling a canvas, or in this case a website. Because of how Squarespace can have limitations on what you can do, having CSS knowledge can be helpful. This website design project was completed while I interned at Osaki Creative Group and was my first client project for them. Throughout this project I was able to work with the other graphic designers who provided me with the logo for the project. I created the product shots, as well as other banner elements throughout the site. 

This project was meant to reflect the High School’s brand image, as well as making it mobile responsive for the faculty, families, and students. The website URL I created was called “kapaawarriors.net” however it is no longer active. After completing this project, I found I had enjoyed doing both graphic design work as well as website design which helped push me in this direction. 

Part 2

My next piece is the Whitworth Art & Design Branding Project which was completed during the Graphic Design 2 class. This project was created by Professor Ben Necochea and was based on the renaming of the Whitworth Art Department to the Whitworth Art and Design Department. 

Throughout this project, we were given the opportunity and freedom to reconceptualize the logo for the department. We also were free to stray from the established Whitworth University brand guidelines. This was a great opportunity to practice creating original logo designs. 

After many phases and ideas, I settled on a concept inspired by Whitworth’s beautiful campus. 

The logo was to be simple and professional, while making the letters clearly visible. I wanted this logo’s letters to connect well together and have balance. The “W” is in the shape of a person which helps to represent student growth in all aspects of their art. Hopefully this design projects the department’s shift in direction. 

Part 3

This website design project was completed in the Fall of 2019. Throughout this project we had the opportunity to redesign a website for The Spine & Scoliosis Clinic that needed improvements in its user experience. In the beginning of this project, we were instructed to completely redesign and update the user experience of the old website. With this project we were given the logo and the information to include on each website page. 

After reviewing all the requirements, I ended up creating 5 web pages in the final design. These included the homepage, a services page, a page for the biophysics, a page for making appointments, and lastly a FAQ page. Throughout this design, I wanted to create an informative and interactive way for people to view their website.

With the homepage design I created a modern layout which spoke about their story as a company, the services they provide, and their mission to serve their customers. I carefully planned the layout, by starting off with paper and pencil and having a creative vision in mind. Carefully guiding the visitors on the website from start to finish. With this design, I was striving for what it would look like if somebody came into their appointment and the step-by-step process.

The services section lists the type of services they provide as well as showcasing the team members, this was all a concept idea. I also created another section on the page where it says “Get Personal” so people can learn more about who they are as a company in a video embedded on this page.

What has to be my favorite part of this website was designing the appointment fill-out section. This design takes an approach of an online form where people would be able to fill out their forms online and from home. This way they would not have to repeat the same process in the office and wait longer. This was an idea I came up with so once they get to the clinic it would be an easy and seamless process to get to their appointment. 

The Biophysics page is where visitors could learn more about what biophysics are. This design was created in the direction to be very clean and easy to read, and the right amount of text.

The last page is the FAQ page. What I was striving for with this design was to make the bolded text the most visible so people would be able to quickly find what they are looking for. Each section is categorized and organized nicely with the blue text separating them. 

Overall, this project helped upgrade my design skills from start to finish. I really enjoyed designing each page and it was a super fun project to update, upgrade and redesign an existing website. 

Part 4

For my final blog post in this series, I would like to talk about my YouTube Subscription Manager Redesign Concept.

This was a project outside of my university studies in which I wanted to think of new ways to be able to help categorize and simplify YouTube’s subscription manager. I did this by reorganizing the dashboard concept of the subscribed channels.

The big problem with your subscription list is that inside of your YouTube subscriptions interface, there is only a single way to view your subscribed channels. Many people like myself have hundreds and possibly even thousands of subscribed channels. And the only way to see your subscribed channels are in a giant list all viewed in alphabetical order. You can end up scrolling endlessly, and it is quite hard to find the channel you’re looking for.

After a few different brainstorming sessions, one of the ideas I came up with was a concept that would help to organize the users accounts subscribed channels. With this new design you’re able to easily see the total number of subscribed channels, most frequently visited channels, recently subscribed channels, and lastly, the joined channels you are a paid member of.

This new design is a much more organized way to view the different activities on your account. You can even see details such as when you first encountered or watched a video of the channel, when the first subscribed date, notification status, last visited date, and a list to show all of the subscribed channels. And here, you are also able to easily unsubscribe to a channel if that is something you want to do.

This dashboard is a concept idea, and can sort through your whole subscribed channels list, or your most frequently visited list. You also have the option to see more in-depth analytics on your account.

I was very happy with the final outcome. After this project, I became very interested in designing dashboards that would help to improve the user interface.