A Feature Article – ‘Delicious yet affordable, please’

A feature article on the best places to eat in Bournemouth on a budget.

Last term we were required to write a feature article for our Professional Writing unit. The feature had to focus on an aspect of Bournemouth and be suitable for a local publication. We then had to design a spread in InDesign that was appropriate to the content of our feature. Here is the opening of my feature article, and below, the three pages created on InDesign. You can view the whole document and read the rest of my feature article here or if you simply want to read the text, click here.

“I found him waiting by the door of the restaurant looking fairly normal and untroubled, checking his watch casually to see how late I was. No one had really noticed him or given him a second glance, but then, why would they? This wasn’t an actor, a musician, a fashion designer. This was my Dad. My very own, unemployed, completely-and-utterly skint father.

“You’re late,” he said as he greeted me with a grin and gestured towards the door. “You get that from your mother, you know.” He laughed at my disgruntled face.

We weren’t, however, there to banter about my lateness or compare my traits to those of my relatives; we were in fact on a mission, a food mission. You see – my Dad has two qualities in which I really admire him. Firstly, he is the most intelligent man I know. Secondly, he has an insatiable desire for food, and although I said we weren’t going to be discussing our family traits, I can safely say that’s been passed on to me. We are a little obsessed with food.

Funny then, that neither of these qualities are apparent in my Dad at the moment. For one, he is not remotely overweight (and neither am I for that matter, lucky genes), and for two, he has been cruelly unemployed for nine and a half months. The economic climate has stripped his intelligence away from him, as it has with many, and left him jobless, foodless and teetering on the edge of homelessness.  He mostly eats beans, lentils and lots of green vegetables, and although he insists he enjoys them, I require a gas mask to enter his flat once they’ve been consumed (and digested) and frankly, I’ve had enough. I don’t intend to sit back and watch the cleverest man I know eat himself to horrendous flatulence when I can find him a good meal somewhere. So, when he told me he would be staying down in Bournemouth for a few days looking for work, I promised him some delicious yet affordable food. Now we just had to find it; our food mission.

A little look at my Bamboo Pen

A small review of one of my birthday presents, my Bamboo Pen, and a little look at an illustration I created with it.

Having always had a passion for drawing/painting/sketching and the rest, I realised I needed to catch up when art went digital. I was still doodling around with my sketch pads and pencils when everyone else were creating computerised master pieces. So for my birthday my boyfriend bought me a Bamboo Pen – a tablet for my PC. As a tribute to the little object that rebooted the flow of my creative juices, I thought I’d write a tiny review about it, but bear in mind I am not a technical person. I can’t provide you with a comparison against any other tablets because, well, I don’t own any. But, I can tell you from my own human experience, that it is.. how shall I put this… WELL GOOD.

For those who have never come across a tablet, this is what it looks like. It’s effectively a pen and pad that enables you to translate handwriting and sketches into digital form, and makes any sort of image editing a whole lot easier.

On first use it sort of feels like you are learning to write again. I couldn’t understand why my normally controlled handwriting and sketching abilities were translated into messages and drawings that looked as if they had been created by a five year old. But, like most things, with a bit of practice the Bamboo Pen becomes a nifty little tool for navigating around your PC and creating digital images and illustrations – or whatever it is you are in to.

Like I said, I can’t offer a comparison against other tablets, but if like me you’d never laid your hands on one of these before but were interested in getting one, then I’d recommend the Bamboo Pen. Not only is it extremely easy to use after a couple of practice runs, its also really good fun. Beware though, that once you start getting creative with it, you can waste hours of time in one go because you just can’t put it down.

So you see exactly where I’m coming from, here is a fashion-type illustration that I drew on my first try with my little bamboo friend. I usually do these sorts of drawings with pens and watercolours which can take up to three or four hours to complete. This little sketch took me roughly twenty minutes on Photoshop. I then, however, wasted another five or six hours because I couldn’t bring myself to stop drawing. That’s a reflectionof my self control though, rather than a negative aspect of the pen.

Vogue.com – A short critique.

A short critique of the wonderful website that is Vogue, analysing elements such as its searchability and usability.

Vogue.com is a high-fashion website that stems from its magazine publication – Vogue. It offers the latest beauty and fashion news, keeps us up to date with celebrity and street trends and even gives us tips on how we can look that good ourselves. But can we find our way around the site  to gain this precious information?

Vogue's impressive searchability

Searchability

The website is extremely easy to find, it is the first result when the word ‘Vogue’ is typed into a search engine. The web address itself is simple and obvious, there is not likely to be any confusion over the content of the website and shares the same name as the magazine publication from which it stems. Vogue.com would probably be the first guess of someone looking for this website.

Usability

The site itself runs quickly and efficiently, images load instantly and some features include videos which load quickly. For example, Vogue TV uses a video that takes a few seconds to load and then plays smoothly.

Navigation

The Vogue site uses a clear structure of navigation. Although there is a lot of information on the homepage, it is not hard to distinguish the black navigation bar at the top of the page. This is laid out with clear general categories which can be clicked on themselves, or automatic drop downs if you are looking for something more specific within this category.

Design

The design of the site seems to reflect the design of the magazine publication to which it is linked, with basic sophisticated colours of black and white, and a simple, elegant layout. This presents the information on the pages without looking too overcrowded, busy or cluttered. The Beauty section, for example, features many different stories but each is clearly headlined and in its own section, resulting in the choice of stories being easy on the eye.

A sophisticated black & white colour scheme

Content

The website provides the reader with a wide choice of stories within the given categories, although of course they generally do all relate to fashion. There is the choice of Jewellery, Beauty, Fashion Shows and a Spy section which investigates what celebrities and people on the streets have been wearing, who’s looked the best and worst, and what’s been going on at the latest celeb parties and awards ceremonies. The idea of Vogue itself is aimed at people interested in fashion, it’s readership is generally women, probably beween the ages of 18-30, and the content that features on the website targets this audience well. Although all the content has been based on fashion, it spreads out to cover all sorts of angles.

Video & Audio

As mentioned above, the website offers a section on its navigation bar named Vogue TV, in which readers are provided with videos including interviews, beauty tips, catwalk shows and behind the scenes footage of fashion and celebrity events. This element of the website adds a bit of spice as the reader is not just presented with image after image but something to actually grab their attention and keep it for as long as that video runs. There is no stand-alone audio featured in the website, only sound that stems from the videos. This seems a good idea, as the videos start automatically when the page is opened, any additional audio would have resulted in sounds playing over each other and causing confusion.

Interactivity

Vogue.com does offer some interactivity with its readers as they are given the opportunity to share their opinions of images and videos that feature on the site via a simple comment system, in which the reader leaves a small comment and their name. For example, a photo of a student has been uploaded to the site in appreciation of what she is wearing, and reader’s have left their own opinions of the outfit and the look.

UGC

With relation to the Interactivity on the website, the user generated content that features on Vogue.com is based on the comments that express the reader’s opinions as mentioned as above. Aside from this the site does not feature much material that comes directly from its readers.

My Top 5 Favourite Sites

For my first official blog post I want to honour my top five favourite websites that really know what they’re doing when it comes to online design. Here is my ‘best list’ of the websites that just can’t get rid of me…

Facebook.com – Typical, but can’t get enough of it. Completely addictive, excellent for people who enjoy spying on others. Not me, obviously, of course not.

Benefit Cosmetics

Kurtgeiger.com – Sadly it is a rare event that I have enough money to use this website to its full potential, but while I can’t always purchase gorgeous shoes, I can stare at them and dribble slightly.

Topshop.com – Money that I’m saving on not buying madly priced shoes gets spent here…

Benefitcosmetics.com – …or here! Amazing makeup, wesbite fully convinces me that their products will make me gorgeous.

Perezhilton.com – Guilty pleasure… Of course I am interested in celebrity lifestyles and how long Robert Pattinson’s beard is on a day to day basis, but I’d like to pretend I am not.