Brief 2 | Prototyping / Usability testing

After my tutorial with Damian on the 06.11.2008 and I presented my draft at that stage, we were talking about how to add 'life' to the interactive website to date.
I was looking at different on/offline research sources.

http://www.mccann.co.uk/


http://www.themixhead.com/

What I liked about mccann web is the simple use of animation, not overpacked with information, two colour based and still very curious and the need to see more.
So I adapted these key elements and was trying to transfer them to my project. I filtered my idea to the core, what was left was the 'circle' or 'ring' as my key element:

- circle
- ring
- cycle

- shi + circle = shircle --> shircle of design

- creativity
- buddhism/hinduism
- universal
- cross culture


Meaning for circle:
- A circle is like the number zero - a form without beginning or end
- It is a smooth form, no rough sides to stick out and cause trouble
- It rolls with the flow
- It is a round river rock that issues flow over
- etypal symbols. They can manifest themselves as circular rooms, the magic circles of shaman
- an important dream symbol representing oneness, completion, wholeness or coming full circle
- Underachieving, being unfocused, running in circles
- If something is circled, it may suggest that it is important or requires attention
- wholeness, perfection, or well-roundedness, among many other meanings
- Consider what the shape means to you personally, and its context in the dream
- Totality; perfection; infinity; the All; the Collective Unconsciousness
- Gatherings of consciousness. If significantly placed, it can represent the Anima
- The self-mastery process; raising consciousness
- Heart, circulatory system
- Clock, clockwise, clockwork - Heart, circulatory system, emotions
- To dream of a circle, denotes that your affairs will deceive you in the proprotions of gain
- Triangle = The whole of the 3 part self (Trinity)
- symbolizes infinity, the circle of life and the eternal unknown. You, the dreamer, may have come to a greater degree of spiritual awareness, so the dream could be spiritual in nature

Processing these information and various meanings about circles/ring, at this stage, now I needed to add life to my website and ADD VALUE. But what does it mean for me myself and my work process? The circle symbolizes me in a certain way that my design should be: immortal/infinite (I know it sounds cheesy) and very distinctive with a strong design/brand recognition of shisivarajah. It can also been seen as a bong between the viewer and the web, regarding it is a ring ('Marry my design').
For me personally adding life was combined with adding characters. Having had the idea of SHIRCLES before, I started illustrating vivid characters with just the use of circles, being the core of my website.
I developed the idea furthermore and illustrated birds using the same key contents.





I then moved on branding myself and still used the circle for the whole branding recognition.
As a further step I brought all the different elements together into one constellation:



I added my favourite quote to the right top hand, recreated typographically and added a flasy effect to emphasize light/bulb. I changed the background to a darker grey rather than a pure black, because it is too contrasty with the green. The black is too dominant in my case and very man based.
My next step is to add small animations to it, it is still liveless.