Week 4 Part 1

  The websites I am about to discuss are well chosen by our professor, as together they do a great job of demonstrating just how much design matters when it comes to the success or failure of a brand to appeal to its target demographic.

   Jamilin.com just could not be more awful. There is so much text scattered all over the place that it is extremely difficult to see what the website is even about. It looks like a giant mess, with competing fonts, effects on the text, colors, terrible imagery, and complete lack of organization. One glance at the site makes me want to click away from it immediately. A visitor to the site could have problems understanding what it's about in the first place, finding specific information, and not having nightmares afterward. What could be improved about the site? Everything! It could definitely use a specific color scheme, some navigational organization, and some professional photography.

   Conversely, apple.com is an extremely attractive website. Clean, uncluttered, well-organized, and featuring beautifully executed photography, the website makes me feel soothed, relaxed and oddly enough, safe. It feels like a safe and inspiring environment in which to explore, and it encourages imagination. The information is presented in an uncomplicated manner, the font choices are limited and consistent, the layout employs the principles of good design. This website makes you want to stay and hang out for awhile.

   While not as dramatically and straightforwardly repulsive as jamilin.com, I still find pennyjuice.com to be off-putting. There are too many colors, the "Rainbows of exciting colors!" heading looks awful, the drop-shadow behind PennyJuice bothers me, and the clipart banner along the bottom really just takes away from the whole operation. I don't see any major problems that visitors would run into, but their site could be much more aesthetically pleasing if they incorporated their images in a more seamless way, changed their social media links to simple buttons and made some changes with their text. Their images are nice, though, and the information is easy to access and make sense of.

   Toyota.com is an attractive, well-organized and laid out website. The imagery is nice, the color scheme is simple and the information, even though there is a lot of it, is easy to access. It gives one the impression of professionalism and competency. The way the buttons interact with you feels edgy and kind of fun. It would be easy to feel like an intelligent consumer if you were shopping in their website.

   The power of influence that design and imagery, whether good or bad, can have in swaying a person for or against a company cannot be overstated.