Colophon

Designer Biography

Hi all. My name is Emma and I’m a final year IMD student, skilled in the areas of design and social networking marketing. I can execute designs, be it on promotional posters, flyers, invitations, email banners or websites using a range of multimedia programmes. 

I’m experienced in and developing my knowledge in web programming and authoring. This website has been developed for my Major Project. I have really enjoyed putting it together and hope you like it too. I hope to graduate in June this year (2011) and go on to build a career in either the advertising or marketing fields.

Design & Concept

Popitdot.com has been created by Emma Heatley. The overall goal of this project was to combine all of the things people want to see/know/buy/do regarding Pop Art within one interactive website instead of having various sites offering only one or two of the above elements and being re-directed to another site for the other information, images or tutorials. The visual design has been inspired by various Pop Art artists. The background was heavily influenced by Roy Lichtenstein’s benday dots, and the icon in the logo by his use of speech bubbles in his artwork. Each page is a different block colour which was inspired by Andy Warhol’s’ silkscreen prints.

Content

Home Section (start-it):
A main homepage image
RSS Feeds
Links to other pages
News items
Bulletins and important information

About Section (learn-it):
This section includes information on the history of Pop Art including a brief showcase on the main influential artists (a pick of my favourite 5 which include Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns and Jim Dine).

Tutorials (do-it):
Tutorials for creating Pop Art by hand or by using computer software.

Online Forum/Blog (share-it):
A members log-in area where users can upload their own work, an interactive blog where users can give each other hints and tips on how to create their own. (RSS feeds from members blogs will appear on the homepage)

Online Shop (get-it):
Members can sell their own work and pre-owned/new merchandise to each other.

Tools and Resources

This website has been built using:
Wordpress, numerous WordPress plug-ins, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Photoshop

Server-side

Popitdot.com utilizes WordPress, a powerful CMS, to manage, maintain and edit its’ content. For example, as WordPress already has a registration system in place, there was no need to create a new one, a link was simply added to the registration page that comes with WordPress allowing users to log in and update their blogs.

Cross Browser Check

Using various tools, popitdot.com has been checked in over 50 browsers. In some, the text formatting is removed and the images appear stretched. To get the best experience possible on popitdot.com please browse in the following:

• Firefox 3.5, 4.0
• Internet Explorer 8
• Opera 10
• Safari 4
• Chrome 8, 10.60

Acknowledgements

Fonts

The theme currently uses Google webfonts (hosted at code.google.com/webfonts). The body font is called ‘Indie Flower’, the headings font is called ‘Permanent Marker’. The logo font is ‘Anime’ sourced by dafont.com

Images
Roy Lichtenstein
Andy Warhol
Jim Dine

Behind the Scenes

He provided the hosting, promptly responded to my frantic emails and guided me through irritating issues, I am of course talking about Mr Robbi McMillen, the WordPress genius. With his help, the stress levels decreased somewhat so I would like to thank him for all the time he invested in listening to my hysterical rants when something wouldn’t work and directing me through the solutions. I would also like to thank Gabriel Muldoon for his suggestions and helping solidify the popitdot.com concept.

And to my ‘Poppets’, thank you for filling in my questionnaires, joining in with the Facebook antics and signing up to popitdot.com. This site has been built thanks to your love of Pop Art. I would like all visitors to popitdot.com, especially my Poppets to have the best experience possible so if you have any suggestions please get in touch.