Banner experiments

I began my project by experimenting with some header designs.

Originally I was going to call this website "Suneye" after an old T Rex song but I discovered that title's taken so, in its place, I've gone for the very optimistic "Hello Sunshine".

Initially the colours I was going to use were white, orange and green, as per my other website www.johngilheaney.com

However, after drawing a mini sun on an ImageReady web banner, and viewing the mix, I thought a blue background was called for so the green had to go.

Creating the second banner experiment (above) was not difficult. I used the marquee tool to draw the shape of the sun and the single line marquee tool to add some rays.

To make the blue background look more interesting I added some brushstrokes in shades of blue. I was quite pleased with the effect and will look to devise a way of making this more professional.

I would love to see the shades of blue segue into the dark of the night sky and put a golden moon in the corner of the header. That would be fun, as would the idea of adding an animation to the header, a mini plane, with banner in tow, moving from one part of the header to the other.

I'm not sure if this is feasible at my stage of learning but I'll certainly look into it. I will also explore ways to make the text come alive. I had a look at various Blending Options which got the juices flowing.

All in all I really enjoyed working on the above, it's great how the creative process can take you into areas you'd never dreamt about.