I could have studied poster art, music sites (particularly festival-related ones), advertising, photography and a wealth of other worldwide web pages but, no, I chose football.
Well, what a bloke am I!
Music and football have been my two chosen Photoshop fields during this course which may be a tad lacklustre to many.
However my spirit of adventure is consoled, albeit to a minor extent, when I recall how my sweet and feisty girlfriend described my music project - www.startree.co.uk - as being "gay and psychedelic".
Perhaps these words explain why I started my Flash course in the manner of a man who'd just been ten rounds with Joe Calzaghe - I don't consider myself gay or psychedelic at all! - but I've now recovered my senses and I'm fit to write these words.
I have to be honest, it's with some trepidation that I do so, this particular course assignment is the one that sees my tendency to procrastinate reach epic proportions, but I'm here now so let's go for it.
So why write about Chelsea's site?
Well, I'm a fan, I have been for over thirty years.
More importantly, from a website perspective, the site is awesome, just take a look.
I like the site because it's so well-structured, a look at the Landing Page which is very neat, gives a very fine impression of what to expect.
With regard to its use of Photoshop our lessons with our Course Tutor Jamie began with a study and replication of a rugby site, in fact the Photoshop header for the Dragons' site we studied and duplicated was much more complicated than that on Chelsea's.
The header on the Chelsea landing page is very simple. A black background and blue border contains some minimal text. The Chelsea badge and some flags, links to ChelseaFC sites across the world, are also included. This header can be found on all the pages within the site although on the main, index page, it's augmented with a few more links. It's a powerful lesson in simplicity.
Below the banner, on the left hand side of the Landing Page, an advertisement, created in Photoshop, can be found.
As I write the Photoshop ad image is a simple one, it shows Chelsea players Nicolas Anelka and John Terry looking resplendent in next season's kit. I suspect these images have been created in Photoshop, simply cut out and placed on a black/grey gradient.
Two logos appear on the ad and the text used - an encouragement to become a member of Chelsea FC - is made more noticeable courtesy of what looks to have been the Blending Options Drop Shadow tool.
The ad image used in this site position changes during the day, as I've just found out. After checking the word count on this essay I returned to the site and lo and behold a new ad was there.
This one. another born in Photoshop, was very polished indeed. It shows a mobile phone on a blue-black gradient. The text and emblems are natural, as it were, no special effects, but the phone appears in a kind of spotlight. Another sophisticated touch, at least in my novice eyes, is the way a reflection has been used to highlight the sheen of this mobile.
I've never added a reflection to any parts of my work so how this one done gives food for thought. I would probably make a copy of the phone. I'd then rotate it 180 degrees, save the image and use the eraser tool to clear all but the bottom of the phone.
I'd then place the image slightly askew of the main one. Whether it was done like this I do not know, there's probably many ways of doing this.
Elsewhere on the landing page four miniature Photoshop images can be seen. They are: an advert for the new Chelsea home kit; an ad from the Bookmakers Paddy Power; a 3D player gallery link and finally a button that leads to a Chelsea fans' survey feature.
They're all encouragingly simple. A feature of quite a few of the Photoshop images on this site is the use of a background gradient with a simple player image and text in the foreground. No frills, but it looks good. It's very simple, even I could replicate these works without too much fuss.
So there we are, a clever, polished, simple Photoshop paradise and we've yet to get past the Landing Page!
Before I look at what's on the main Chelsea index page I just want to contrast what I've written about with a few other football teams, another Premiership side and a team from a lower division.
The Manchester United site (http://www.manutd.com) also employs a landing page. It takes a fair while to appear on the screen and the use of Photoshop is disappointingly minimal and average.
The banner features a dark map of the world tucked away in the right hand corner of the page - and little else.
The fantastic Man Utd badge is on the middle level on the left of the landing page - surely this should be at the top of the screen? - elsewhere the designers have mostly and simply added text to photographs.
Disappointing.
Far more exciting and dramatic are the Photoshop posters found on some lower division sites.
For example Bristol Rovers' landing page (http://www.bristolrovers.premiumtv.co.uk/) invariably features a large Photoshop banner. In match weeks two large cut-outs of respective team players in action are skilfully placed under platinum-coloured text headlines. It sells the match in a dynamic way.
At the time of writing the site features one big poster which, despite my efforts cannot be downloaded. On the left is a very striking image of a model wearing the new kit and on the right hand side there's an ad poster. The background is of grass, probably the team's turf, and superimposed on this are some mini tables using a variety of energised-looking texts.
While there's not a great deal of difference between the teams's landing pages, in the sense that they're all very simple, entering Chelsea's site and index homepage is a different matter. The site is run on Flash so I can't comment too much on it but, again, Photoshop images can be found at the foot of this marvellous base, mostly adverts for betting and the new kit, as mentioned above.
Of all the images I've seen on these sites the most memorable and dramatic shows seven Chelsea players placed on top of Stamford Bridge.
I think it unlikely that these boys posed for the camera atop the stadium (!) so cut-outs of the individual players and use of layers to place them have been adopted.
I suspect - because there are a number of ways of doing things in Photoshop - that the gradient tool has been used to make the sky look the way it does.
Alternatively, the Designer could have taken a dramatic skyline and worked from there. Either way, both methods will probably have seen the artist add various touches to the firmament via the brushes palette.
I do not know whether the London Eye is visible from the top of Stamford Bridge. If it isn't then this landmark has skillfully been added to one of the earlier layers.
If it is then the designer has probably taken a wideshot picture of Stamford Bridge and then daubed it in shadows and reflections (there are many ways to do this) as well as adding the player cut-outs, altering their size with the Transform Tool.
Adding text is straightforward and so all in all it's a very polished production.
However the one element which could have been better is the sun. I'm not convinced that a sun at that height in the sky will give that kind of light or glow.
But who says you must always be authentic, after all this is a piece of software which is notorious for the fake wonders it can help to create.
I hope this essay is satisfactory. I must admit to feeling slightly uneasy about criticising the work of Photoshop artists far more talented than me though I've learnt more in the process.
I would just like to finish this piece by wishing Chelsea and Bristol Rovers all the best next season.
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