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[Jason]

here is an oversimplified and possibly overexaggerated example

magazine A could have good content, but designed average, and it is made with the same format as all magazines for the most part that is the binding on the left (for the states) and reads left to right, and has pages

magazine B has good content, and has an excelent design, but the magazine is layed out where the binding is on the botton and the text reads from bottom to top

this is the difference between "artistic" design, where the pictures are pretty etc but the object might not be functional and "functional" design where the pictures are nice, but the overall object functions well

another IMO the sites you listed (well at least the first 3 since i was lazy and just wanted click links) were examples of sites that are very artisticly designed, but their functionality is lacking IMO, the site designs were confusing, but they looked good, i had no clue where to go or what to do, but whatever i was doing i was looking at something pretty

but unfortunately, im one that doesnt stay at sites that confuse me, even if they are pretty, if their site functionality was better then i would love to be at the site...

its something to me has been lost in this day of flashy web design, the designers have lost touch with functionality, just because the designer knows how to navigate the site, or can see the important parts of a site, or can run the flash animations etc doesnt mean that the end user can...

anyways this is blowing things out of proportion, trips site is very functional besides my one little tiny pet peeve hehe, and it may just be my pet peeve and no one elses, who knows but its functionality vs marketing what we are getting at (i think )

any clearer yet? sorry if im so confusing

[MacLuv]

[Jason]

well they may be boundry breakers in the world of functionality but if it makes it a chore for the user to figure out where to go, i think thats bad functionality IMO

as far as my audience

my audience is way too general for me to create something group specific, my audience includes, clients, general population, family, friends, anyone looking for digital artwork etc

i dont cater myself to certain clients over others on purpose, the style of my site might turn some on and some off, but really i dont have a specific enough audience (ive designed for anything from a carpet repair guy, to womens underwear advert) to really gear my site towards any certain group of people....

but as a default my site is geared towards those who are more interested in photography, just because my work ends up being photographic in nature unless uneeded...

so i suppose my site was marketed towards me in the end, which is what it is for, its mostly my personal portfolio... other than that its rather worthless hehe

[Trip]

I must say...this is quite inspiring, really! I don't mind much that the thread has gone a bit off course, but i have learned quite a bit in the process so let's help eachother out a bit and try to help me figure out my target audience for my website. Where should we start?

[MacLuv]

[MacLuv]

[Trip]

Keep the info coming!

I'm going to start thinking about a wide range of people that I can include in my list of "targets", and then work my way down to a few tiny more specific people and see if that helps. Quick note: I'm posting all of this because I'm thinking, again, of re-doing the site more professionaly.)

Another thing that goes along with the topic of target audiences, that I'm having trouble with is this: so let's say we're going to design cars. All cars all the time. For those big paying clients out there like Nissan and BMW. Now what? How can we design a website/portfolio that will attract the attention of design hunters from these kind of corporations? What do we need to include in the overall website design? What can we leave out?

Much help is greatly appricated from anybody and everybody! Everybody's input is very important here!

[MacLuv]