Expanding the Brief

After doing basic research on a few event sites and looking through some designers portfolio sites that i wish to include for my event, i think after having a look into some of my higher limits it will be good to look at the brief, manipulate it to be specific to my project, and elaborate more on each point giving myself a very definite and concise plan for the rest of the project.


The brief as it stands at the moment reads like this;

The Brief (general description of the course work requirements)

Design and produce a WordPress content management website for an event. You can choose any event, for example a conference, a music festival, an arts festival, an awards event etc., however this will need to be agreed by your tutor. You can take content and logo’s from existing events but the design of the site must be yours. You can use existing WordPress Frameworks and/ or themes but these must be modified to suit your purpose and design, or, you could design your own theme. You must research your event genre and produce suitable information architecture and designs, along with consideration of your target audience.

The site will need to be responsive and you will need to consider and implement SEO for WordPress, usability and user experience, producing wireframes and user testing in order to test your user journeys. Detailed research into the above, along with evidence of research into your choice of plug-ins, i.e. why did you use particular plug-ins, what do they cost and what are the ongoing fees, must be evidenced in your blogs.

Your site should also contain at least the following:

A home page with some information about the client.

An about page with detailed information.

A booking system

Detailed information about each event.

A news area

Contact info and a map.

An events calendar with categories.

A shop selling some merchandise using PayPal

A search bar.

A gallery page.

Ability to register and log-in.

A blog.

Links to social media, including some live social media feed.

An analytics system.


In order for me to achieve the goals set by the brief, after having focussed my ideas slightly more i feel i can rewrite it for my purpose.

The Brief Revised

Design and produce a WordPress content management website for an event. Having chosen to create my own event, you can take content and logo’s from existing events but the design of the site must be yours. You can use existing WordPress Frameworks and/ or themes but these must be modified to suit your purpose and design. (Due to my previously stated lack of wordpress knowledge i think designing my own theme will be a tall order)

Brief Tasks

• You must research your event genre and produce suitable information architecture and designs, along with consideration of your target audience.
• The site will need to be responsive 
• You will need to consider and implement SEO for WordPress
• You will need to consider and implement usability and user experience
• You will need to produce wireframes
• You will need to carry out user testing in order to test your user journeys
• Give detailed research into the above
• Give evidence of research into your choice of plug-ins, i.e. why did you use particular plug-ins, what do they cost and what are the ongoing fees

All these bullet points will have to be documented in my blog and i think for ease of tracking, i shall colour coordinate the list; red for pending, green for completed.

Your site should also contain at least the following:

1. A home page with some information about the client

• If at all possible i think i would rather have a separate page for an "about" section, this way i can have a homepage dedicated to the event itself and therefore maximum audience engagement.
• I also think having an about page on the home page would slightly defeat the purpose of an event site, but if the brief can't be bent to accommodate that then i guess i will have to include something to draw the attention away from it a little 

An about page with detailed information.

• If at all possible i would rather include all information here, making the above points void.

A booking system

• Presumably for tickets etc. which can be seen in some of my research already, making stylistic page choices easier to refine

Detailed information about each event.

A news area

Contact info and a map.

• Perhaps research into event spaces available in order to create a map for the event

An events calendar with categories.

• Could include the creators workshop idea mentioned previously

A shop selling some merchandise using PayPal

• With my event theme centring around concept art, posters could be mocked up based on existing artwork, as well as many other things such as mouse mats, t-shirts etc.

A search bar.

• Could include on each page, eg. Artist page - Search Artist, Work Page - Search Title/Inspired By, Creator Workshop Page - Search by Software/Medium

A gallery page.

• Perhaps some sort of continually moving gallery such as that showcased in the MCM Comicon homepage

Ability to register and log-in.

A blog.

Links to social media, including some live social media feed.

• May require events own twitter page to be created and linked

An analytics system.

• At first thought i think will most likely be page visits or ticket sales

After expanding on many of these points it actually seems a lot more daunting now, but unlike before i can now begin to research in a more refined manner, getting more work done instead of always having to return to the brief and reword it in order to carve out a path for my research.