OUGD503 Collaborative Practice, Desperados - Website Research (Studio Brief Two)

Before I begin designing a website for this brief, I thought it would be useful to have a look at some websites that already exist - this is simply to get an idea of how the content will be laid out / how it will scroll etc, not for the actual aesthetic, as Desperados will be very different from anything online.

Firstly, I think it would be useful to look at a Festival website. I think this will be helpful as festivals are huge, incredibly popular events - which is really what we will be creating an event - and I might get an idea of what makes an events website successful. The first thing I noticed about this website is the content - it is hugely crowded and quite difficult to focus on one aspect at once as there is literally just so much going on, especially with scrolling images and constantly changing content. Having said that, the website is quite easy to navigate, as the important links are at the very top - the line up and a link to buy tickets. The extra content isn't necessarily needed to sell the tickets, however I guess it's for people that are already attending the festival and want to know more, whether it's articles about who to see or photographs from previous years.

Next I thought it would be interesting to look at websites that sell products. I thought this, as technically selling tickets to an event is the same as selling a product, and it might be helpful to have a similar layout. I decided to look at NotAnotherBill, a website I have been in awe of for a while as their content is very aesthetically pleasing. This website is absolutely beautiful - although that is mainly down to the high quality photography used. The navigation of the website is successful, however it's quite boring. The actual layout of the shop is very successful as each photograph compliments each other very successfully. This isn't much help to me, however, as my own website would only be selling tickets, and therefore it wouldn't specifically need a photograph of the different packages available.

I then thought that I would look at a website that sells tickets. I chose to look at TicketMaster. The website is very easy to navigate, as if you are visiting the website, there is a high chance you already know which event you are looking to purchase tickets for, so the huge search bar at the top is very important, however the actual layout of the website is incredibly dull. It has a very limited amount of colours used and it all seems very corporate - this is something I need to avoid for my website design, as the events held are supposed to be exciting and the website will definitely need to reflect this.