The single page website that I chose to review was done by James Ellington. The designer’s topic discussed the hills and forests of Iwate, Northern Japan. The first thing I encountered entering the site was some information about what the site had to do with. The designer clearly stated that he took a trip to Iwate and was inspired by the landscape and wanted to create a page that informed others of its beauty. To navigate to the next concept of the page, al I had to do was scroll down and I was greeted by new background noise and footage of the forests. He had “Inspiring Soundscapes” as his largest text, which let me know that that is what this part of the page was going to talk about. Beneath the large text he talked about what you would hear while walking through the forests and the background noise he added made it fee like I was there, which I thought was very creative. To get to the next segment of the website, all I had to do was scroll down again. I was greeted by new footage again and new large text that said “Motion Into Life.” The footage was of a running stream and the background noise parralled the footage accurately. The text beneath the large text was there, again to explain this segment. When I scrolled down again, to find another segment, there was no footage; instead a simple picture of the tops of trees. However there was new background noise and more large text to explain the page. The text read: “Sound x Motion x Experience.” The text underneath, or the text that has been used to explain each pages concept, did not make sense to me for this part. It didn’t have much to do with his experience; it simply stated that he was leaving Iwate that night and would not be returning. My final scroll led me to a short biography of the designer with a picture in the background that matched the footage that I was greeted with one the opening page.
Overall, I think this website was laid out very well. Everything was consistent and I didn’t have to do any thinking as far as navigating the page went. The different segments of the website were unified by similar text, sound, and imagery which created a nice even flow. The images and footage he chose to have on each segment worked well together because they all had a similar color palette, letting me know that this was indeed one website. There wasn’t much texture in this website as far as the text went because everything was black and white with a sans serif font. However, there was still texture and this could be found in all of his different footage that he chose to add. I think he made the text so plain so that it didn’t take away from the pictures. It was clear to me that his intentions were to make his viewers feel as if they were actually in the forest of Iwate and I think he was successful in that aspect. I think the designer did an excellent job on this single page site.