My site is primarily content-driven, and as such I should put as much time and care into it as I will the coding of the overall site. It is also important to follow the content-first approach we have learned over the course of the MA, and I should therefore start with the content. The site’s content will include:
- home page – very simple with prominent navigation
- tutorial pages ~ 9-10 in total – video, images, instructions, relevant links
- Your setup/getting started – text, images
- Safety – text, images
- About – text, image
Content Production
I intend to film resincraft tutorials using a static, top-down approach, where the workstation is the focus of the video. As there will be no movement, the camera will be mounted on a Jaws desktop mount for stability. I also intend to shoot footage on an iPhone 13. As the card artist Cathy Zielske points out in her demonstration of how she films her own tutorials, modern iPhones are more than adequate for capturing quality footage, particularly if the camera is stationary. Lighting the workstation adequately will also be taken into account, and I will consider using a desktop ring light.
Video will be shot via the MoviePro app, which is a useful tool for collating footage and adjusting white balance before the editing stage. I intend to use iMovie for editing the footage; while Final Cut Pro is available, iMovie’s simple interface will enable me to work with relative ease and speed.
Video will not feature recorded sound, as I intend to use added voiceover to narrate the tutorial steps. Not only will this help avoid any unwanted background noise, I will not need to rerecord entire videos simply because of issues with my wording or other audio hiccups. Voiceover can be recorded directly into iMovie. According to Think Media’s tutorial on voiceover, modern MacBook Pros have good quality built-in mics, but I will test to see if the audio quality would be improved with an external microphone.
For accessibility, my video tutorials will use closed captions.
I intend to create my tutorials and images over the course of mid-May – mid-June, immediately after the Prototype crit session. With fewer deadlines to work on, I believe I will be able to give my content the focus it needs. I will also begin writing the text content for my pages.
Videos will then be published on Youtube. I believe it is necessary to upload to Youtube despite its monetised ads, because according to my research with the Reddit community, beginner crafters often use Youtube as their starting point for learning. It is also more financially viable for me, as other video hosts often require a payment plan. However, I will consider Vimeo, which has limited free options.
Site Promotion
I will set up a Cure8 Instagram account to promote the website, as well as add relevant posts to my Mastodon account. Furthermore, I intend to post as myself in the /Resin community on Reddit. I do not believe that posting from an official Cure8 account would be well-received on Reddit, which seems to favour communicating with individuals rather than brands looking to ‘sell’ something.
Posts on Instagram will feature images of created works accompanied by the Cure8 logo. These will be created and optimised in PhotoShop. I will also upload short clips of tutorials or works in progress featuring royalty-free background music. The Splice video editing app allows users to create content directly on their phones and features a wide range of royalty-free music.
Posts on all three platforms will be made regularly for the duration of the project’s creation (May – September), as well as beyond. Instagram posts can be made at least twice weekly as a quick way to build followers (there are currently 12m posts featuring the #resin tag, and 11.7m featuring #resinart).
Technology
Domain name
I decided that as my website’s name is cure8, I would use the simple domain name cure8.uk . As prices given for crafting materials will be in GBP, there is therefore a need for geographical clarity in my domain name. I bought this domain name from Clook (£15.98 GBP for 2 years), as it appeared to be better value than Google’s £10 per year cost.
Hosting
While we have been using Clook for our coursework hosting so far, I thought it best to explore other options. According to several sites including crazyegg.com, Hostinger is the best overall choice for most people’s needs, citing fast load times and affordability.
Here is a comparison provided by financesonline.com:
Hostinger is evidently the more affordable choice with prices starting at $1.39 p/m. Their storage is also far superior.
However, crazyegg.com reports regular downtime with shared and Hostinger’s WordPress hosting, which can leave sites un viewable for up to one full day a month. Furthermore, Website Planet’s review of Hostinger states that the chat customer support mainly consists of links to documentation, with few ‘human’ responses.
As someone very new to any sort of backend development, I would rather not be met with bot-like customer support in times of distress, especially when I can get Carl from Clook on the phone in less than 60 seconds. Clook also clearly states its inclusion of a free SSL certificate, an encryption tool that helps keep user data secure. For this reason, I will continue to work with Clook for my hosting.
Front-end Tech
My website will be comprised of the following technologies:
- HTML/CSS for markup and styling
- PHP for includes, copyright date, page titles and smartnav
- JavaScript – for any added interactivity or added delight. I may potentially use JavaScript to create dropdowns for tutorial categories, but I believe this can be done in CSS. Ultimately, I do not wish to use JavaScript for the sake of it if interactive elements can be achieved using the more robust layer.
- SVG images – I plan to create subtle graphics for my website, and therefore will work with SVG. I will also provide PNG fallback for those using older browsers.
My user group setup will play a part in my design’s layout. Many users, such as those browsing for creative ideas in Group B, will most likely be using a phone or tablet, and I must therefore take a mobile-first approach to my design.
Content Management System
While my site will be for the most part static, updates will occur periodically as I add more tutorial pages. It would be in my interest to use a content management system to achieve this, as it would cut down the need to hard code each page individually when a tutorial template could be more efficient.
I have decided that I will use WordPress for my content management for several reasons:
- open-source
- 41% marketshare, making it a valuable tool to learn career-wise.
- One of the more intuitive, simple content management systems. As I plan to create websites for those who do not have tech backgrounds, it is important that they are able to manage their content independently.
- access to a variety of plugins
Potential Plugins
- All In One SEO or Yoast – enhanced SEO
- Sucuri – for protection against malware
- Woocommerce – should I choose to sell products online in future
- comments enabled on tutorials and contact form
Building my WordPress theme and working with WordPress in general is the area I feel is most intimidating due to my lack of experience. As such, I expect to spend a great deal of time on learning it.
Proposed Schedule
mid May – mid June 2023: content creation (video, images, site text), WordPress learning and theme development
mid June – mid August: Site build
mid August – early September: testing, researching user feedback
early September – mid September: adjustments where necessary
Social media content production and publishing to be constant throughout the duration.