07 / 06 / 2013

Getting things done

Author

Nick Pilling

Category

Blogs

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Proper planning and schematics are an important part of any web brief we get in at the chapel, sometimes people don't get to see what goes under the hood of a project apart from the pretty picture at the end. We decided to share a quick insight into a project we are currently working on in the studio for a state of the art academy based in London.
Before any design takes place, or even wireframing we get right down to the nitty gritty and begin with creating the schematics for the website. How the site will work, how the user will navigate through the site, how to collate content in an easy to manage size. We follow the guides and rules set out by our to our Absolute "Bible" which we recently got printed as an A2 board, reminiscent to that  of the 10 commandants! We follow these simple steps to ensure a smooth and well thought out process during the entire project from start to finish.
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Once we have an idea of how the site structure will work, we move onto some initial designs, and make clear the user journey along the way, which involves a lot of scribbling, blue tack, and highlighter pens! We often use our studio walls to pin up our work use so its a clear indication to the design and development team of how the site will work, and you start to get a real feel of the site before its even gone into build.
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The site is going into the build stage in the next couple of a weeks, so hopefully we can show you the live thing sometime soon!

ab-hammersmith-planning-2

Proper planning and schematics are an important part of any web brief we get in at the chapel, sometimes people don't get to see what goes under the hood of a project apart from the pretty picture at the end. We decided to share a quick insight into a project we are currently working on in the studio for a state of the art educational academy based in London.

Before any design takes place, we create a series of rough schematics for the website. We discuss how the site will work, how the user will navigate through the site, and how to best arrange the site's content. Think of taking a big pile of paper documents, a huge empty filing cabinet, then deciding which drawers to put the information in, what dividers to use and where in the room the cabinet should be positioned!

ab-process-2

We follow guides and rules set out by our to our Absolute Process which we recently got printed as an A2 board which resides in the studio. We follow these simple steps (created from over 10 years of trial and error) to ensure a smooth production during the entire project from start to finish.

Once we have an idea of how the site architecture will work, we move onto some initial designs and rough layouts. These are chopped up, pasted, scribbled on and generally pulled apart away from a Mac. This process involves a lot of Sharpie markers, Blu Tack and highlighter pens!

abs-process-si-and-byju

We often use our studio walls to pin up our work use so its a clear indication to the design and development team of how the site will work, and you start to get a real feel of the site before its even gone into build. At Absolute we firmly believe that good ideas and suggestions can come from anywhere, no matter of department, position or specialism. We invite the whole team to be involved through the process to ensure that the best product is created at the end.

The site is going into the build phase in the next couple of a weeks. Look out for future posts from our development team who will give some insight on how we tackle the build process of this project.