The website I am redesigning for my final project is http://www.interpunk.com
The target audience for this website is teenagers and young adults (mostly males) who are into punk rock music and punk rock fashions. From my competitive analysis, I learned that many other competitive websites were using a color palette and overall design that did not fit with a punk rock look. Some sites were selling punk clothing but the design of the sites had a more pop-punk feel or even a heavy metal feel. I learned that simple colors (such as true red and black on white) are important to achieve a genuine punk look that would reflect the focus of the site.
Images also need to reflect the style. Too many different images crowd a site and give a cluttered feeling. Choosing a solid striking image, even for use as a background image, is more effective. I redesigned the site by creating a clean, streamlined look and choosing colors, images, and font styles that would add interest and reflect the stark punk rock theme.
What works in the original site: The skull logo works, and the tagline, “The Ultimate Punk Music Store!” captures interest. But most of the elements in the design don’t work well at all. The color scheme, which is mostly blue, yellow, and white, the “Interpunk” text, which is a loud yellow, and the images of blue bricks and background image of an evening sky/cityscape all give the site a cartoon-like “Halloween” feel. This does not match the punk rock theme.
There are way too many mini repetitive images on the site, such as overuse of little skulls near the navigation or yellow stars bordering the top of the site. All the images clash (the bricks, the stars, the skulls) and make the site look cluttered.
The navigation has miscellaneous main pages that need to be streamlined/eliminated. I redesigned by focusing on the main products - clothing and music. The navigation sidebar on the left contains too many pages under “departments” and “quick find,” which can be contained in the main pages. There is another extremely long sidebar on the right for “popular bands.” There is way too much to look at and read on the home page, and a lot of this information would be better contained in other pages - having so many items for sale, images, and sales text on the home page makes it hard for the viewer to focus.
Decent use of grid, but nothing that stands out. Site is flushed a little more to the left by design. No white space, which the site could use. The navigation is clear & upfront but contains too many navigation pages. The typography is clear, but, besides the main logo typography, is unexciting and has little variation in size and style.
My redesign addresses these issues and I am aiming for more use of stark/ironic photography and clean pages, along with the a more punk rock color palette of red, white, and black to go with the punk/underground theme.
