Steklarstvo Bistrica logo design, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

This logo was made for slovenian company that distributes glass for personal and industrial purposes. The client wanted a simple and clean logo that would distinguish its identity from other glazier companies in the same city or nearby.

I decided to use serif font to present the historic importance of glazier activity in general and substantiate it with the logo initials ‘S’ and ‘B’, which are distinguished only by colour and are carefully placed left from the typographic part of the logo.

The colours were kind of the client’s wish, but they were also chosen for the recognition and differentiation factor that was very important for this company to really stand out in the crowd.

The company has already started using the logo, which is a big (first) step in the company’s new identity.

Bringler igre website redesign, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

A few months ago we redesigned the Bringler igre website, a slovenian website with free online flash games that is owned by the game development company Motiviti (www.motiviti.com).

I redesigned the menu, the frames, buttons and links, colour combinations, changed the fonts and logo a bit and voila! (Took me two months to get to ‘voila’, but ok

The thing I’m the most proud of is the menu (default, active, mouse-over), but the hardest thing was to minimize the design elements so that game categories wouldn’t get overlooked because of the constantly changing game thumbnails.

We made quite a change to the design layout but stayed consistent to the previous one so the frequent users wouldn’t have to learn the new layout all over again. We also made it easier to the users to navigate through categories and add a new menu tab ‘Igre za punce’ (Games for girls) where girls can find games they like the most.

Every now and then we change the background picture on Bringler so you can have something nice to watch while waiting for games to load

Easter, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

My interpretation of Easter; insted of colouring eggs, why not colour chickens?

Finally I can announce that on February the 26th I got my diploma on Faculty for eletrotechnics, computer science and informatics, University of Maribor, Slovenia.

I am now a B.Sc. of Media Communications.

After my last year of studying Media communications (Interactive graphic design) I decided to explore the field of web usability, specifically usability assessment of social networking websites. My diploma research was based on evaluation of Facebook usability with techniques that were accessible during my research. My diploma research work is available here* in slovene language. Here is a short abstract:

The emergence of the World Wide Web has allowed users access to large amounts of information that can be found on the Internet.User interfaces have a major role in human-computer communication. Web content must be presented in a way that most users can understand and use. Because of varying levels of experience, knowledge and individual characteristics of web users, the design of web interfaces is subject to debates by psychology specialists, human-computer interaction specialists, graphic designers, sociologists and specialists in related sciences. They tend to define  universal standards for website usefulness in order to ensure the most universal and positive user experience. Since social networking sites are currently the most popular online communications medium, it is necessary to develop user interfaces with a keen consideration for the expectations and requirements of typical users. A positive user experience can only be created by analyzing the usefulness of websites in various aspects and offering  the best possible solutions.

* Since the document is only available in slovene language at this moment you are free to translate it with Google translator or any other translation tool to see the results.

As you can see I made some changes to my blog design and layout. I am now using the Smashing Wordpress Theme and have been making some small CSS corrections and adjustifications to the original template. Looks pretty much different by now. Since I’ve read quite a lot about usability in the last few months, I focus on making my website user-friendly and elegant but still with a touch of ‘Ajdish’ playfulness. It might take some time to make it beautiful but you know, you can’t rush good design, especially nice illustrations for the background picture

I’ve also decided to write my blog posts in english since I strangely get more response from abroad than from my native Slovenia (especially on SNs like Twitter and LinkedIn).

Feel free to compliment on my blog, get all excited and write cool comments, become my stalker on Facebook or anything you’d like and I might use you to visit your country and have you as my guide the whole week.

Hope you got the joke

Diggy dog saves christmas game design, originally uploaded by Ajda Gregorčič.

These are screenshots of a 3-minute game called Diggy dog saves christmas. The game was made by slovenian game development company Motiviti. The menus, buttons, logo and illustrations were designed by me. The task was to design a very shiny christmas-spirit interface to present the game and the control keys so the user can start playing it.