IDM Photoshop Final Design

After sleeping on it, I took into account all the flaws from the previous mockup and improved on everything. The first thing I did was research some well designed corporate sites to give me a better idea of what to do.

This site made me realise that minimal design is a good idea. However, the main thing I took learned form this site though is icons could be a good idea for the IDM site. The more text used, the more things users have to read, and no one likes too much text. 

I then had a look at site that use more colour because I wanted to see how to use colour more effectively. This site showed me that colours can be used if they aren't too vivid.

I started to rethink the colour palette so had a look around for a more subtle set of colours and found a more suited one.

Designing the navbar:

After research, I opted for icons rather than text with too many effects. I had a bit of trouble choosing whether to have black or white icons and in the end went with white because it stands out more. I kept all the rulers from my first mockup because they were well placed. 

Finished homepage + other page:

This time, I stripped the old design of all it's effects and started again. After filling in all the sections, I began to think of how the background and section borders should be coloured. I tried several colours but in the end went with different shades of grey because other colours detracted from the focus of the page. It ended up looking almost like a newspaper style. Although it looks a bit more plain now, at least it is more serious and clear. I also redid the logo with better colours, and consequently the navbar icons changed too. The effects added on the the site are more refined too; the navbar icons have a dropshadow but they are flat which is all that's needed to enhance then and make them 'pop' (whatever that means). 

I changed also changed the slideshow to a more developed one, the images can be bigger now but the core function still works. In the info section I changed the type and removed the effects because more is less for more important sections of a site. The job search sections didn't really change too much. The layout is pretty much the same but once again the effects have been removed/altered. The chosen job is highlighted blue and the description box has no inner shadow now. Each job description had images of the job environment to give more context. I got rid of the site footer completely because everything on there before was unnecessary. 

When a link on the navbar is clicked, the clicked icon is highlighted so users know where they are. In the original IDM contact page, it was a bit small and all over the place and the message box was too small. So I made better use of the room. Original contact page:

To conclude, I much prefer this mockup from my previous one. However, trying to find the balance of colour proved quite difficult for me. I am still unsure whether I should have added colour to the background and borders.