The State of Web Design Education
It's a sad but well known fact that web design education in UK Colleges and Universities is extremely lacking. For whatever reason, web design courses are often irrelevant, out of date, or grouped together with seemingly "related" courses such as Computer Science.
Not so for Northern Ireland. Fortunately, University of Ulster lecturers Chris Murphy and Nicklas Persson (collectively known as the Web Standardistas) are actively promoting a web standards based curriculum for their Interactive Multimedia Design course.
We thought it would be useful to take a look through the portfolio sites of the final year students, and pick out our top five.
We based our decisions on the following three factors:
- Use of Web Standards
- Look and Feel of the Design and Layout
- Breaking away from the Trend
#5 - David Henderson - www.6ixels.com
David's attention to detail can be seen particularly in his portfolio section. He uses Jquery to transition the hide/show of further information about each portfolio piece.
A question might be raised however about the pronounication of 6ixels - sixels or sixixels?
#4 - Shane O'Neill - atshane.com
Shane's classic look is really effective and he has perfected the one page layout by making sure the menu is always accessible. The 'How's My Markup?' link is an especially nice touch.
A hover state for the links would be a big improvement to accessibility.
#3 - Scott Millar - scottmillardesign.co.uk
Scott uses fixed position elements to keep his branding and menu on screen at all times, allowing the body content to scroll up and underneath a page header. This is a really neat effect that stands out from typical layouts.
Scott's branding is also clean and memorable, and would work well across a variety of mediums.
#2 - Tim McKinstry - www.mckinstryonline.com
The first think that strikes you on Tim's site is the illustration (try mousing over the character's eyeball). The homepage is layed out with lots of white space, which makes it easier to read and helps the page flow.
Tim's branding is again extremely effective and his style is reflected throughout his work. Again some hover response on the links would help considerably.
#1 - Damian Gribben - damiangribben.com
While Damian's site might not be the most visually impressive, he gets the number one spot for doing something different. His unusual layout makes the site much more appealing and memorable. Lots of white space is used, so separate elements are easily identified and read without visual clutter. This works especially well on Damian's blog.
The portfolio is presented on a different site, which doesn't come under our judgement, but full marks for his unique way of displaying feeds from his various social networking accounts.
General Thoughts
While we've showcased some talented young designers here there were numerous others who could have featured. For those that didn't make our top 5, what we found was no shortage of talent, but a lot of the same, tired trends rolled out (which is easy to do, and very hard to break out of). Those few who aren't afraid to break the mould and try something different will be sure to find a career in web design.
A big hat tip must go to the Standardistas (follow them on twitter here) for their continuous efforts in educating tomorrow's web designers. Thanks to them and their collegues, each year the IMD course sends out into the world talented graduates who have the skills and abilities to create beautiful and complient designs for the web.
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