my site - design development

After realising my previous designs didn't function to my liking when it came to introducing the sub menu's i looked at different layout designs. This is the one I most liked and although I was aware there was something that wasn't quite right about it. I felt it had move potential to be developed and felt excited about it more than I had with previous ideas which was clearly a good sign.

Above shows the initial structure I came up with as explained above. 

the next two images show my splash page which is made up of a shape structure that will continue into the site. The shapes will become my thumbnail spaces where I can reveal a small tight crop of the image that is behind it.

upon hover the shape will have a colour over lay (semi transparent) that contains text letting the viewer know the title of the project they are clicking to view.

These colour overlay's will correspond to the menu tab selection highlight colour so the viewer constantly knows where they are.

As you can see with the splash the circle in the middle that is empty will have the tree from my logo appear upon hover of any of the letters (see next image)

a click anywhere on the page will enter the site.

I decided to look at how images would look in this format. I tired setting an area that would always be used regardless of if i was showing one landscape. two portraits or one portrait format.

I instantly discovered a problem with the thumbnails and wasn't sure about the images being viewed against such a complicated (although uncluttered) back ground.

I plan to see what lightbox would look like and to re-think the need for thumbnails also.