Ames' syllabi

EscaLa Restaurant & Bar

I chose escalaktown.com for this review. It is a Korean/Colombian Fusion Restaurant in L.A.

The Home page has a smooth and clean yet fun feel to it. The white background paired with the fun photographs and their interesting logo makes for a interesting homepage. My only complaint would be the amount of text. They have a lot of about information mixed with other info. I feel that it could be separated into another tab. Their menu page is clean and easy to read, but they use white text over top of their photographs of white plates making it hard to read. Their events page is a simple calendar, but flipping through it you do not see any events. If there are no regular events scheduled maybe it would be best to just delete that page and add an about. Overall it is easy to navigate and provided a fun and easy user experience.

Compared to our website it is very different. Ours uses dark colors and large simple photographs. Our photographs are taken up close to provide a textured feel to them. We tried only to contain text that was important for people to know and all of our pages are used and deemed necessary. Our menus are split into pages by category, whereas the other was all one long page.

Overall I think that if we were in the same area they could be considered a competition fusion restaurant, but only if they also had a food truck. Our websites do not have a lot in common but they both work in their own way.

For this final review I chose to review Rock & Brew’s website in comparison to my group’s website. The overall aesthetic of the website is very similar to my groups website. On the Rock & Brews website, they have a lot of black and red throughout the website. They have a banner across the top of the website that has lots of rock and roll bands posters. The fonts they have chosen to use are bold and bulky looking, but fit the aesthetic very well. The overall layout of the website is very pleasing to the eye, and keeps the user interested in seeing what else the website has to offer.

The navigation of the website is pretty standard in the sense of having a toolbar on the top. On the toolbar they have Foods & Brews, About Us, Shop, Promotions, and Franchising. When you mouse over the Foods & Brews and the About Us tabs, there are several more smaller options that appear below the main tab to navigate you to specific parts of that tab. All the font on their page is very easy to read and easy to navigate. They as well on top of the toolbar have a search box to find locations closest to the user. All the tabs that they have on the website are very straightforward and easy to access and use.

My groups website Black Diamond compared to the Rock & Brew is similar, yet far different. The Rock & Brew website has a feeling that I’d like for my groups website to have a little more of, positive space. I feel like, when people think rock n roll, they think of posters everywhere, black and red, grungy looking things, and I feel as though my groups website is little too clean cut to be a rock n roll based website. Rock & Brew has more of an edgy look while still being professional, and my groups is far too professional. We took this a bit too serious and didn’t have enough fun with it like we could have. Our website does stand out though, from our promotions page. We have pictures of real people enjoying themselves out on nights out (all of which are my friends and family who allowed me to use their pictures).
Overall, the Rock & Brew website is very easy to navigate, has a nice on brand layout, fitting color scheme, and was very aesthetically pleasing. rockandbrews.com gives a typical rock n roll experience, and Black Diamond gives an edgy feeling while also keeping things simple and sweet.

The restaurant that would be a competitor for my restaurant is Cold Stone Creamery. The layout is simple with one line with different categories of what they offer. The color is different shades of white and red plus they have a few graphics to grab your attention. They use their logo on either side of each page and it gives the page a new dimension plus texture. Each on their tab has sub-tabs to make navigation easier and more simple. I think they have to many sub-tabs because users may be annoyed having to go through so many tabs just to get to what you want. They do a lot of online order and delivery but my website is more eye catching and is more simple in categories.

Lacocinitafoodtruck.com

La Cocinita Food Truck’s website utilizes a simple one column layout with an analogous color scheme. The site makes use of minimal texture, which can be seen in the dark colored ribbon at the top and bottom of the page and bars on the sides of the photos that are on the homepage. The site also has a slight depth to it as seen with the arrow buttons on the sides of the photos on the homepage that overlap the red background. La Cocinita’s site is a good example of a clean and grainy design. The color scheme ties in with the color scheme of the physical truck, which can be seen on the “Truck pics” page, very well. The use of bright red on the site as a dominant color effectively stimulates the eye and makes viewers feel that the food truck and website are exciting.

The navigation of the page effectively leads viewers to what they are looking for with ease. The utilization of a menu bar at the top of the site allows users to find what they are looking for immediately or by simply hovering over an option and finding their destination in the drop down menu that some of the options possess. Navigation is also assisted by the website using a different color to highlight what page viewers are on as a “you are here” indicator. If for some reason users are not able to find what they need from the navigation bar, there is also a search option at the very top of the website.

Overall the La Cocinita Food Truck website works well in providing the information that viewers are looking for effectively and efficiently. However, the design of the website is forgettable because of the aforementioned minimal texture.

Our World Showcase Website uses a sleek and nostalgic style with the texture background of the site and dark colors. The navigation of the World Showcase site is very similar to that of La Cocinita’s. The general layout of our websites are very similar as well; World Showcase also utilizes a one column layout. The difference between our websites and what will make it stand out compared the La Cocinita Food Truck website is the texture. Our textured background and depth through the use of the floating pages over the background create a more memorable look and experience for viewers. Both lacocinitafoodtruck.com and the World Showcase website effectively give viewers information. World Showcase’s website goes the extra step and makes it memorable.

For my final review, I decided to choose the website www.awlins.com.  It is the site for the A.W. Lin’s restaurant that serves a fusion of Chinese, Sushi, and Thai cuisine.  To start off, the layout of A.W. Lin’s is very typical of other restaurant sites. On the main menu page, it features a top navigation bar with their logo to the top left.  Then as you move down, there is a title area. In this area there is a static photo of food with a box of type featuring the restaurant name and also a summary of the style of food they make.  This title section is a nice touch, helping users like me who have never heard of the restaurant before, have a general knowledge of their food. It is something our site lacks currently but after seeing it I will add.  The rest of the navigation consists of slideshows and noticeable buttons to take throughout the site. The sites menus feature the consistent static photo with title at the top with a centered list of menu items. This list of items is clear and noticeable but becomes very boring when scrolling through.  This gets me to the color portion. The color pallete consists of white, brown and several shades of red. While the the red and brown have a big contrast on the white background with helps with navigation buttons, it becomes boring in a few spots throughout the site. One of the things I might add to the site would be the use of texture.  A.W. Lin’s has very little, if any use of texture in the site. With its plain white background and bars of colors the site has no texture at all through the site. I would likely add a subtle background texture to the white and also add more of a textured line to the thin rules that separate sections of the layout. The navigation of the site is very consistent of many restaurants.  The global navigation consists of menu, order now, private dining, gift cards, locations, promotions, and news. These sections I believe clearly order the content in a logical manner except for the gift cards page. The gift cards page is very small only having a line of text saying you can buy a card at the store which I believe to be unnecessary for it to have its own global navigation section.  This restaurant has many items on the menu and also seems to focus on ordering take out and delivery which makes it necessary for the full menu to be available. Therefore with all the menu items, the site broke the menu into five sections with a drop down bar on the global navigation. I think this is necessary for this site specifically because of emphasis of ordering from the phone and its large menu.  Lastly, while I believe the site can effectively guide a user through the content, I think there are a few places where the user could become confused. With the contrast of the site, the user can clearly find what is clickable and what is not, I believe there are some places on the main menu where a user can ask “Why is this button here?” Overall the site has an effective contrast use that helps with navigation, the overall design feels boring to me with its lack of texture and interesting features.  A.W. Lin’s site did point out things like a main menu title that I need to add to our fusion site, but I believe overall our fusion website will be more effective with more use of texture and photography to interest our users and make them starving for out food. Our sites navigation will also be smaller, taking bigger logical chunks of content to put on each button of the global navigation bar. This I believe will help the user navigate to the page they need to be on much more than that of A.W. Lin’s.

     I chose to review and compare no.9park.com and burgatorybar.com for this assignment.

     To start the No.9 Park Website is easy to navigate and pleasing to look at. They use a Hierarchical/ Sequence architecture and Global/Secondary Navigation. This makes the site user friendly and easy to follow. This site gives off a classy and put together feel that you may not get from other sites. It shows that this restaurant is expensive and elegant without being too in your face about it. This site contains a nice balance of images and text so as not to overwhelm the user. These elements also work together to provide a positive viewing experience. Overall this site has a clear hierarchy and layout making it in my opinion an easy to use and enjoyable site.

     The Burgatory site is much different from the first in regards to style but everything else is pretty similar. While No. 9 Park was classy, Burgatory is more of a Trendy site. It too uses Hierarchical/Sequence architecture along with Global/Secondary Navigation. It is user friendly and easy to navigate just like the first site. The websites design and navigation makes it fun and interesting to navigate. You can tell from this site that this is a fun and trendy place to eat. While this site relies mainly on pictures to attract its audience there is enough supplemental text to get the point across. This site does not overwhelm or frustrate, so I would say overall that it is user friendly due to its clear hierarchy and layout.

     Overall, I enjoyed both websites. They both were different yet both had similar setups. I think I enjoyed the No. 9 Park site more simply because it looked cleaner. It was not as in  your face as Burgatory was and I think that it works to the sites advantage.

The website for the La Cocinita Food Truck (https://lacocinitafoodtruck.com) would be considered competition for our fusion restaurant; as we are both food trucks looking to sell our food to people on the street. The first thing I noticed while visiting this site is that the website has a red background; and according to “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design” red is known to “increase human metabolism,” meaning that it’s smart to have a food related site on a red background, as it will make the viewers of your page hungrier. On a similar note, the company’s truck is also red, having the same effect as the site background, making customers want food. The main accent color is a shade of mustard yellow, with the text on the red background standing out well. Yellow is “associated with happiness” to quote “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design,” making yellow a friendly option when used to offset the red. They also use this deep tone of yellow for the background color of their main navigation bar. The reason this color is an accent color as opposed to the main color, is that “too much yellow can be overpowering.” The La Cocinita website uses color well, and is not tough on the viewer’s eyes because of it. Something that stood out to me was the fact that the top NavBar had some items present drop down menus on a hover, but not all of them. I liked the look of having different styles on one NavBar, it makes the site look more diverse or have more depth in my opinion. The layout of the site is okay, I feel that the sharp corners of everything on the page looks kind of harsh, but I did like things such as the auto scrolling gallery on the homepage, and the idea of pictures showing the progression of the truck. The site has no apparent texture, as everything on the site is just a plain, solid color. The only elements that could have texture on the site are the pictures, but only two of the pictures actually load when you click “Food Pics” under the Photo tab. The site feels quite “blocky” due to the sharp corners on the images and the straight bars surrounding the headers on the other pages. One thing that I really liked, and I’m now planning on incorporating into my group’s final project, is that on the La Cocinita home page they have pictures of the logos for Twitter, FaceBook, and Instagram. Should you click on one of these pictures, it will take you to the company’s page on that particular social media source. The menu is laid out differently, as with our site we will be listing specific dishes to incorporate the fusion aspect of the restaurant, but La Cocinita has a menu set up like a Chipotle or Moe’s, which consists of pick a vessel, pick a protein, pick sauces, toppings, etc. This site is an okay webpage (5.5 or 6/10) as far as getting the job done, but our group plans on making our web page more refined than the La Cocinita, through CSS styling and slicing. The World Showcase site will have some similar elements, such as a NavBar up top, a logo above it, and obviously many similar page ideas. However our stylization of the website would be much cleaner, with a more luxurious and homely feel than the La Cocinita, establishing the World Showcase as an elite food truck.

Francesca Barchetti

Review 4

April 23, 2019

https://www.onionmaiden.com

I chose to do my final review on an Asian fusion restaurant called ,Onion Maiden.

This restaurant is very similar to theme and style that we chose for our restaurant, Black Diamond. The Layout they chose for their website is very well communicated throughout the entire site. It is very cohesive on every page. The color scheme chosen is black and white. “Black often receives negative connotations such as death and evil”(pg 49). This is perfect for the theme they are going for. They want to reach the heavy metal music crowd just as we did. The Onion Maiden color scheme is very similar to our website which uses white, black, light blue, and grey. As for the “texture” of this website I would describe it as rough. I chose this word because the website makes you feel like your in a world of darkness. The website is very good at explaining the vibe that the restaurant wants the viewer to perceive. The Onion Maiden website is also very user friendly to navigate. At the bottom of each back there is a “back to home” button which makes things very easy for someone trying to move fast through their site. I actually think that we could have learned alot from this website had I discovered it sooner. That being said I think we do still compete with their site. Their website is much more simple and easy to get through and I think if we had done that it would have helped the overall effectiveness of our site.

For this review, I looked into Salud Juciery’s website. Their website is very simple and clean. The layout is like most other restaurants, with a logo followed by the tabs at the top. Under this, they inserted a photo and a statement about their restaurant. The website I am working on for the final is very similar in regards to the homepage. Off of the homepage there are pages like, “Menu, “About Us”, and “Order Online”. These pages are similar to the homepage because they are short and simple. There isn’t a lot of information to scroll to. The layout including the header and footer stay the same on each page. In the footer, they linked their social media accounts and have a way to get in contact with them. My final website will have these same features.

The color palette is very limited on each page other than the photos. The background is a white/cream and has black text. The only pop of color is in the logo at the top of each page. These colors don’t work well to create a welcoming atmosphere but make it seem modern.

Overall, the website is very plain which makes it easy to navigate. There are clear tabs at the top of each page to lead you to another. The header and footer remain constant to help viewers find the information they are looking for. There aren’t any special elements that keep the viewers attention though. Even on the menu page, the ingredients are just listed under the titles. If there were photos to click on and read about it would be more interactive and fun. The simplistic layout gets the point across but doesn’t offer anything more.

Our website will be pretty similar in terms of information and layout. However, we are going to include more colors and photos to add energy to the pages. For example, our menu page is something you would see at the restaurant rather than just a list of food and ingredients. Salud rarely uses pictures which are very important to restaurants. Viewers immediately judge a place off of what they see online.

makst299

Madisyn Kovach

ARTM2210

4/23/19

Review #4

Review #4:

The website that I have chosen that is very similar to my groups “Eye-Pop” Page is giraffe.com.  I have chosen this page for several reasons. These reasons include the color of the website, the type of layout, and the images created.  These are just a few reasons why I chose this website.

The first reason why I chose this website was because of how similar our colors were.  When designing Eye-Pop, we designed it with bright colors with dark backgrounds. When seeing giraffe.com, the first colors that made my eye pop was the yellows, pinks, and blues.  This was the first reason why I feel like giraffe.com is similar to our Eye-Pop page.

The second reason why I chose giraffe.com is because the layout of the website.  The layout is very similar to our eye-pop page. I looked on a few of their pages and they have very similar different layouts.  I feel like we have a similar layout because ours is clear and simple but still will catch the readers eye.

The third reason why I feel like Eye-Pop and giraffe.com are similar are because of the vector graphics featured on the page.  When looking at a website, you usually just see real photographs that someone took. Even though giraffe.com has some real images, most of the side images that are shown are all vector images. I find it unique to not only have real photos on your web page.

All in all, I feel like giraffe.com is very similar to our Eye-Pop page. I feel like our website will pop out a little more than giraffe.com.  I feel like Eye-Pop includes several more colors, little animations, and cool images. These are just a few reasons how I feel that giraffe.com is a similar website to Eye-Pop.     

Subzero ice cream
I like how they got links in the header so you don’t got to scroll down. Now for the lay out, it’s amazing because the store is in the the background. Now it’s not amazing the store is in the background it’s amazing because the store is colorful and it go with website and how they use multiple colors circles to look like ice cream flavor. Subzero ice cream stated that “we’ve been making irresistible, award-winning ice cream for 50 years, so we think we’re pretty good at it. But you should try for yourself tasting is believing!”. Next you can see how creative they get with their act work, from the looks of it the art work it a vector Illustration. I really like how they illustrated the tubes of ice crane showing off their flavors. Last thing is under our story they have a slide show of the store highlights over their 50 years.

Eat’N Park
Eat’N Park have a slide show under the header. The slide show have deals, specials and trying to get people to come in for breakfast.
The lay out is good, use of color well balanced, everything comes together well and it’s very simple. At the top of the website they try to get your order or come in. Now when you go down a little further it talks about their youth sports sponsorship and also want to join the Eat’N Park club. Now it’s time to camper it to No. 9 Park (restaurants). No. 9 park used a overlay for their web page. The don’t got a lot of words but a lot of white space. No.9 Park try to let pictures speak for themselves also give you information on the owner, wine director, general manager and chief DE Cuisine. Eat’N Park don’t have that.

For the final review, I found a restaurant and website named Metro Diner. They have a very similar layout to the website our group and I are making, and we have the diner theme going on as well. We may not have the exact same food, but it could definitely be considered competition. To begin, the layout of the website when clicking on is organized with a slideshow, displaying photos talking about hiring, catering options, and upcoming events. As you scroll down, delicious pictures of food are shown, specifically specials, and a few customer reviews are placed.  They all have five stars, and a thoughtful paragraph of their experience there. On to color, their theme seems to be dark grey, white, yellow, and green.  I feel like it could work for their brand, but I think that’s kind of ugly.  But if it’s their thing, it’s their thing. There is a lot of texture on site almost everywhere.  At the top of the page, the grey appears to be a concrete type of background.  The letters in the ads are neat, but have a scribbled look to them.  Moving down, it shows a white wooden background, with paint strokes in a bright yellow, with green text on top.  All of the food appears to be crispy, juicy, and fresh when examining the pictures. When looking at navigation, Metro Diner has a navi bar at the top of the page containing Home, Menus, Locations, Catering, About Us, and Careers. I feel like this is normal for a restaurant to have those.  When in mobile, there is a little tab that can be pressed where all of that information is shown.  When comparing this diner to our website, a lot of similarities can be found.  But, ours I feel like will stand out more because of a few things.  Our colors are brighter and cuter, we have delicious, unusual fusion foods that other places never would have.  Our prices are cheap, too. I think we have a pretty strong competition with Metro Diner, but I feel like we have a stronger eatery.