I used the C.R.A.P. method I learned in English 101 when designing this website. C.R.A.P is an acronym that stands for contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. All four of these design elements were used in different ways to collectively present all of my projects from English 101 this quarter.

 

Contrast

       Contrast was used heavily within my website. First I darkened the background photo and added red bars on both the top and bottom to create contrast between the two. I darkened the photo to make it less distracting to the reader and added the red bar to attract the readers’ eyes to my different project links. I think that was an effective way to keep the reader from getting too distracted or lost within my website. A white box was also placed on top of the picture, and behind the text on each page to provide for easy reading. Another use of contrast was with the difference between the body text, headings and subheadings. I started with a simple font, Times New Roman, size 15. Times New Roman is great for body text because it is a simple serif font. To contrast the simple serif font I used Lobster, a sans-serif font. I also made the headings and subheadings a larger size and red to contrast to the white background.

 

Repetition

       Repetition was used within my different projects many times. All three included key phrases like, "essential highway" and "sense of community" and all three repeated the topic of Red Square. The color red was repeated throughout my website as the main color because the name of the square being discussed is Red Square. The contrast I talked about above was also used repeatedly throughout my website as well.

 

Alignment

       Alignment was used very consistently within my website. The body text is all left aligned and indented at the beginning of paragraphs. All of the subheadings are also left aligned but not indented. The main heading of each page, as well as the words Red Square on the first page are all aligned in the center. I did this to make them stand out from the body text better.

 

Proximity

       Proximity was used a lot less than the other three design elements on my website. I used proximity to keep all of the different parts of each project together, but separate from the other projects. I also used proximity to organize the different links at the top of the website into a logic order. Home and introduction are next to each other for obvious reasons, the review , podcast and proposal went in order from the first project of the quarter to the last and map and design are the last links because they add additional information if wanted, but aren't needed to understand the projects themselves.

 

Template

       In addition to C.R.A.P I also used a template from Wix.com to create this website. I chose this template specificly because I really liked the way the pages flowed and how simple yet professional it looked. I didn't really change anything too major from the original template because I really liked it, but I did change the color scheme, fonts and background image.