Social Networking - Design Ideas

Right because I am still having trouble with this php coding I thought that I would leave that and start designing the image for the site. I first of all needed to come up with an idea for a name of my site, this involved thinking about what the whole aim of the site was. And things that me and my friends thought represented my site were:

- Networking
- Socialising
- Students
- Company
- Portfolio
- Promo

In all honesty I could not think of a name and so I moved onto my friends, and after pushing them into giving me name ideas my friend Pip came up with the name 'Port Net' and I loved the sound of it. It completely represents what my site is aiming for; its a 'networking' site for students who want to show off there 'portfolios'. I feel that the name is simple and to the point, also kind of catchy.



Above shows the general theme of what I would like the general image to look like for the website. When thinking of colours I don't want a colour that is too in the users face and thats why I chose the colour orange. I am still going to work on the general theme but having researched imagery and definitions of the word 'Networking' I get the idea of hands shaking or computers but, as this is meant to be a student-company networking site I want to incorporate this idea for my theme of the site.

Below is one of my ideas for a design that I could use.



It is only an initial idea but I have already received some positive feedback from people who I have shown it too so I think that I may enhance this design.

The main idea of the of design was to clearly show networking. I wanted to incorporate something that people would recognise immediately and so that's when I thought of the male/female symbol. They are always seen together and so linking them (maybe tweeking them to look a bit more like a business man and student) I felt created a strong networking symbol. I would use a design like this throughout the site maybe change the colour.

I intend to improve the header and create a few more different ideas but; I will also pursue the design work for this design as I feel that I'm onto a winner.