competitor analysis....

Client: F&N Coca-Cola (M) Sdn Bhd.
URL : http://www.fn.com.my/

My client for the project is a website of F&N Coca-Cola (M) Sdn Bhd. this company basicly serve a beverage....well known brands such as Coca-cola, F&N, 100plus, etc....and i have to redesign their website, but still must retain the corporate identity, necessary informations, and adding some missing important elements....



Current website....its not that bad actually, its just that they more concentrate for the company/ investor user rather than consumer user....I can see the point here why they do it in this way, its clearly showing that as the "mother" website, it serve as a company establishing website, to build reputation and all...You can tell it by looking at the menu and submenu they have, its all about the company's self esteem...and they provide the link to the rest of the products they have....but its better for them to give just a simple clue for the products they have, about the brands, nutritions, that kinda stuff....

By analysing some of the competitors will get much more clearer idea of how to improve this website....lets see......

...Gatorade...
(http://www.gatorade.com/)



Start of with Gatorade...an energy drink...Contradict with F&N's website, this one is more to the consumer-based website...they provide so much information of how people NEED they products to replace the missing ion and liquid in our body as we do even an everyday-life activity.....Its a good way though...its quite convincing and some more supported with the fact from their scientist to prove it....My favorit page from this website is "The Lab: Gatorade Sport Science Institute" page....bellow is the screen shot....



From this page you can explore their laboratory....just for fun...and at the same time you can get the rough idea of how this company working environments, how clean, etc. without they telling you with the boring text of paragraph....but history about them? also got...Further, they have showing a famous people who use their products, celebrity endorsement....They also provide the user with something to download...with it, they actually give an image of "giving presents" for those who coming to visit their website....Again, about the image in consumer's point of view...

...Mountain Dew...
(http://www.mountaindew.com/)



Next its Mountain Dew....Fully Flash website....as you can expect it lots of animations transitions....Just like Gatorade, this website also a consumer-based...but instead of having a lot of informations about the scientist proven facts, they fully utilise the flash site they have to give more user experience exploring they website...and some more have game!TRANSFORMERS xD ...interesting.....The rest is almost the same concept with Gatorade, offering something to download, celebrity endorsement, history....

...Pepsi...
(http://www.pepsi.com/)



Last....Pepsi...this famous brand also have a website more to the consumer-based...have a lot of entertainment and music...This website is quite unique for me because to handle that much informations they have, they specially build another website to handle each informations...so it will go back and forth between those website.....but....this website is nice..and the rest of the website (which is the one who handle the informations) is just another normal kinda layout..Its ok, but just dont look consistent and under one family....

So what i get from this analysis is out there more of those other famous brands are giving priority to a consumer rather than an investor....Giving more attention to the consumer is another way to increase the popularity or the company's self esteem...Giving merchandise, wallpaper to download, or music will make the consumer "take" the brand itself to their life....

Important points:
. history of the company (establishing image)
. corporate identity
. colour scheme through out the website
. unique identity of each products (logo, colour, etc...)
. entertainments (collection of tv ads, music)
. interactivity of the user (download stuff, games)
. celebrity endorsement

quiksilver's website

URL: http://au.quiksilver.com/

At the first time you go to this website you will notice that they will ask you "where are you?" place...to have an idea of what content that suitable to your location....yes..this is a obviously an international-known brand....Quiksilver is a brand that mostly ofering a products that related to a teenage-life (t-shirs, denims, and all) with the extreme sports (skateboard, surf, and all)...

Screenshot for the "where are you?" page....choose one...



This website..looking from its content..is so well organize...as i told tou before it even separating their products based on where the users are...so the users wont encounter the "sorry this products not available in your area" page...which is very annoying....All the menu that you need to access to their products is located in the top of every page...using drop-down menu to make it simple...yet effective way to save a space in overall design...and the user will easily get what they want..simply just by one...or two clicks away...Eventhough its a boxy kind of layout...but still it not static...because of the image that keep on changing every few seconds...but unfortunately its only for the main menu...Another things that good about this website's main menu is it has a direct link to the promotional item by them...so that we will never get out-dated in term of they new products...

Typography...fonts quite easy too read...not to big, not too small...but they got 1 fatal mistake, on the gallery page some part of the text are overlaping with the picture..totally cannot read.. -____-" hope they fix it sooner....

Basicly they devide the page in to two part...top and bottom...where they put all the content on the bottom part...and the supporting image as well as the menu logo and all that stuff on the top part..

Screenshot for the home page...



There you see..text overlaping with the image...



One of my favorit part that atract me in a website is if they have a playlist on it...to suit the mood when you go to their page...and this website DO have a playlist inside...but again.....error.....the text overlaping (again!) with the flash music player image....man.. -___-

Screenshot...see lah..



Besides all those error thingy, i like this website because of the simple plain white background..and the image choosen...really reflecting the characteristic of the products...which is free, young-energy, and style....

cathedral..at jakarta.....what's the name??

Not for school project...this picture was taken during last term break..at Jakarta...just for fun..heheeh.....I found out that it looks nice..no such a building like that in my hometown btw...



Edit abit using photoshop to enhance on the colour and overall mood....Think its good enough to put it here...so..enjoy..

scanography.....drawing with..scanner..

Okay...starting our lesson of photography class...got assignment which is creating an image using scanner..aka scanogram....because that is the first lesson, so we not raelly understand how to use our camera...that's why she asked us to use scanner....

*man..apaalah yang kw bilang yu... f(^^""

Now..a bit serious...one fact that i love from this scanogram method is the really small depth-of-field...covered in the focus area...it produce a unique images....more similar to the macro photography....but not really the same also....

Here are my work doing scanogram method...my camera lens..and a walkman...

The double coating glass in the lens creating a colour in the end result...actually i'm not realize its going to be that obvious the colour.....

See..in this image you can tell how small the DoF in the image creating with scanner.....this walkman looks abit like a compact camera in some point...nah, nolahh..

Small DoF...no prespective...un-natural lighting...characteristic of a scanogram image..

MTV's website

URL: http://www.mtv.com/

Another template-based kind of website...for MTV...but eventhough its a boxy type of website, it still manage to give the impression of MTV's characteristic...fluid and dynamic, to suit the music and celebrity trend in one particular time...by doing the ramdomize background every time you visit another page....that's one of the point will attract user to surf their website...

..Thats the good point about that...

Theres also a bad point for that..well at least for me..which is....sometimes the background graphic too much -__-....It makes it too blend with the important content..distracting...

As you can see the example from 2 different page got 2 different background...

...Home page...



...Music page...



Another good points for this site..to make a more dynamic experience for user when browsing this site is...the alphabetical list to find an artist....theres a lot of artist out there now, and grouping them based on their initial in one of the way to make it easier to organize...

nikon's website

URL: http://www.nikon.com.my/

Nikon is one of the leading company in digital imaging in the world..Their website, here in Malaysia, also quite interesting and organize...and the most imprtantly...user friendly...basicly they use the same layout concept for other region, even for the global site...They do this way to suit the broad range of their target audiance..start from early teenagers (who like to take the snapshots of their friends for fun) until those adults (who really dedicated their life for professional photography)...Even when the first time visiting this website, i think people wont get confuse...And also user will get what they wat easily..ony have 3 level of pages...Still dont want bother to click?..use the search facility on top there...

We will easily locate the navigational drop-down menu buttons..i think because of the small icon next to it..and also the font weight..its bold... 0.0

In general, they using 3 types of layout..1st you can find in the Home Page and Products..which is contain 2 columns, with the one on the left showing more spacific

and detail info and on the right is more like a "shortcut" for you to easy access on to their products...

Screenshots of the home page...

And here is the screenshots for the products page...

Okay, the next layout is when you go deeper inside the products page..and you'll have something like this (see pic below..) For this 2nd layout, it has 3 main area, which is pictures of the product from many angle, general information (price, kit lens, brochures, etc..), and the specific informations (main features, tech specs, related products, ,etc...)

Screenshots of a detail products page...

And the last one is a layout for service&support, news room, where to buy, nikon hub, and links..which is diplaying a pics and text, for informative part..and a thumbnail for a related links...

Screenshot for news room...

As for the grid system...they just play save...using the same header and footer for all the pages (except for main and products page..they insert a flash animation to make the page looks "life")..

new things to come..

Okay..back from a wonderful term break...a lot of new things to come! Since the 1st week..we got a lot of assignment to do^^""

Start Monday with web design 2 -tutorials- class..test...ok its not a strassful test btw...but more to the re-view back with all those stuff that we learn from last term web design 1..designing a page, puttin' contents, slicing pages, and bulid the html using dreamweaver...but, the thing is we given only 2 hours to finish all that!!...kiddin', they let us finish it at home..and submit it this thursday..hehee.. =D

Next..Tuesday....photography class...yeaay!at last..ahahahah xD Our first class is basicly talking about "the history of photography"..type of camera from the clasic until the most canggih one...owh yea!and we also have a chance to experience using a large format camera...yea its LARGE FORMAT CAMERA xD

*One of my photography book also does said that "If you ever get a chance to use one (large format camera), even for a few hours, it is an exparience not to be pass up."

For you who dont know how does it looks like...it looks like the picture bellow..



Ok..after that, Wednesday...digital video...sounds like fun...and stressfull.. ^^" I dont know, meybe because its new to me..hope that some of my knowledge in photography can help me survive in this class also..yesterday Kenny only talk about the "role" in the project (such as; producer, director, DoP, and all...) and sharing about his experience in this video world..

And than, still on the same day...consumer behaviour and marketing class...not much to say...but it end a bit late..the class untill 9.30pm..gosh....

Last but not least...Thursday..web design 2 -lecture-...i never thought this class will be so much fun ^^ a lot of sharing about design and web world that i never think about before...Looking forward to the next class.. =)

Alright, thats it for now...
see ya..