design changes

Over the past weeks I have made many changes to my design and eventually settled for the one I feel is most effective and excited me most.

I noted some issues and have gone about rectifying these.
The first change I made was to eliminate the double navigation panels as I felt the vertical one was taking vital space away from my main site content which should be for images.
I experimented with Lightbox and found it to be the most visually effective way of showcasing my images.

As previously explained (my splash page at present) May potentially make some subtle changes to this however the general structure and function remains (tree from logo appears on hover of any letter and click anywhere on screen to enter site)

LANDING PAGE / HOME

To keep with the splash yet introduce some images to indicate that images will later fill the same area.

 As you can see a lot of changes have been made to the navigation bar which I am now really pleased with. Each box has it's own colour coding that when selected remains in colour and other colour page elements such as the transparent fills which will appear over thumbnails upon hover and next page arrows ect will all correspond meaning user is always aware of their location within the site.

The logo - when clicked always takes user back to this home page.

I have included a footer which remains on screen permanently and shows contact information.

If you look to the right of the navigation panel you can see a small arrow which when clicked puts the navigation tabs into hiding mode. like the functionality of the menu on (http://spielmagazine.com)

This home/landing page is purely for aesthetics and the letters do not link to any further content. This I feel introduces the user to the navigation menu and how to get around the site on first content. 

In the next example above you can see what happens when the user clicks the projects tab. It is highlighted in it's given colour code and the thumbnails are filled with images. Each of which is a kind of taster to the project that exists behind it. The arrow > which is also colour coded would appear should there be another page - if for example there was a further 3/4/5/6 projects to be seen, a click of the arrow would mean the first 3/4/5/6 or however many spaces needed to show the next projects not visible on the first screen would roll away and the others would join on the end rows.

The next image will show what these then look like upon hover, however bare in mind they will never all be seen together - this is just to show what they look like.

The following image will show what happens when the user then selects one of the given projects. (in this example 'the dogs home, a picture story'. has been selected.

As you can see the final image is the title in a colour coded box. This is the explanatory text that supports any given project and will be viewed in light box like the images. this means it is optional reading and can be skipped as easily as an image. additionally should the user want to read it prior to viewing the images. they can. 

If a project consisted of more than 14 images and one slide of text the same mechanism with an arrow > would apply as explained previously. Although all images contained could be viewed in Lightbox on a continuous stream starting with which ever one the user clicked first.

The next two images will show lightbox pop up with an image and one showing how text would look also.

Please note the arrows in lightbox, and the title above the main body of supportive text would all correspond if we were on say for example. the books or exhibitions page (as each section has it's own colour coding.) yet they would be displayed in the same way. thumbnails with corresponding colour overlay and viewed in lightbox as images.