This is my main topic that I have chosen to write about, mainly because I really am a fashion lover and it would be great to evaluate the impact online fashion shops have had on the web. I know some of you reading this may not feeling that it is relevant to the world of web. But believe me it is and it is taking off massively and is contributing to the world web more than you think.

The first topic I am going to hit on will be the amount of online shops there are nowadays, not only are there companies which run purely off online income but companies which have stores scattered around the country, are setting up an online store as well to gain extra income. Take boohoo for example, they are a company based purely on shipping clothes all over the world from there warehouse. There brand is recognised world wide and gets advertised frequently on other popular web pages, which gives them maybe more recognition than a shop based on a high street somewhere. Boohoo also has a feature which gives user’s who shop online the experience to ‘try clothes on’ like they would in a shop. 

The application is called my wardrobe and you simply scroll through and pick the items that you desire, such as dresses, shoes, tights, bags, ect. Eventually you will have created your own outfit, each item is listed on the side as you go along, giving the price and the options to easier add any of the items to the virtual ‘shopping basket’. 

Moving on slightly from online shops to shops on the high street which are using e-commerce to increase there sales. Oasis have recently told the press how they are going to install a number of iPads into there London store and eventually increase it to every store they have in the country. The idea behind this is to ‘change the way we shop’ by installing iPads, by which customers can decide what items of clothing they wish to buy and the size and colour available. The iPads will be available in the changing rooms too, which gives the customers the option to request outfits from the shop floor. This information is then processed to the staff in store which will use the iPad to collect together the outfit and bring them to the changing room. There will also be an option to pay via the iPad for people who are using they bank/credit card. Or a receipt which the order on will be sent to the buyers home address for them to pay for later on. This saves time queuing, which equals happy customers. By using these new techniques, I feel will expand the eCommerce industry and eventually more and more shops will be copying this process. I definitely feel it will be a hit with the public as it makes shopping an enjoyable, calm experience, which is what people want.

A quote from the company states, “The store has put digital technology at the heart of the shopping experience, with the goal being ‘to provide the best customer service on the high street”.

Read more about this service tat: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2051892/Oasis-revolutionise-shop-iPads-changing-rooms-90-minute-home-delivery.html

Right now moving back to online sales, another massive step in the online advertisement direction, are online bloggers. You may now have come across many people who actually get employed or maybe do it as a hobby, but blog about new fashion trends, new make up products, fashion companies, ect. These are very good ways of getting people to purchase items that are advertised on a blog. Especially if the blog is getting a lot of hits, most the time a company will send bloggers free samples of new products for them to try out and review, which can bring in a lot of revenue for the company.

This is a print screen from llymlrs.com, as you can see she is reviewing lots of products and along the sides advertising a lot of sites.

Have a search around to see what exciting blogs you can find and if you think they have an impact on the online web spectrum!

Overall the way I feel and the impression I get from people, shopping statistics, articles, ect, is that shopping these days isn’t quite as indulgent and enjoyable as it’s perceived. Most people feel it is quite a tiresome task. 

A lot of reasons have resulted in the rise of online fashion shopping. Lack of time to go personally is one of the biggest reasons. People have busy lives and therefore shopping is usually a quite a low-priority task. But in a situation like this online fashion shopping becomes an easy and simple task. Any time, any place you can explore the wonders that is the world wide web, choose your desired outfit and have it delivered straight to your front door. 

Online there is such a wide range, even more so than a shopping centre. There is more choice, from vintage to designer to high street trends, the list is endless. There are also parodies to charity shops, such as the ASOS market place or even sites like ebay! The appeal is to everybody, because there is something for everybody out there. In addition to the variety one can get online, shoppers can shop also from any part of the world. That is because the internet has no geographic restriction at all. 

In the future, not too very far ahead online shopping will take off even more, some people predicting that there will be no need for chains on the high street. A the end of the day it is up to personal opinion on how we shop, some people like going into stores, or are maybe too scared of using the internet to order goods. All I know is that e-commerce is a very fast moving environment, which is almost certain to expand thoroughly in a few years to come. 

In this blog post I am going to be writing about Typography, legibility and typefaces. These are all important aspects of the visual and auditory side of a web page, after this post hopefully you will understand the depth that goes into the design stages of the site.

Typefaces

A typeface is an artists interpretation of a set of characters, it is most commonly known as the font. Each typeface is a representation which fits between the verbal side (how you say the characters) and the visual side (the look of the characters). When computers were first around, the user could not pick the typeface as it was usually already set by the browser. Nowadays HTML and CSS styles give you the option to implement the page to your desire, or should I say to find the desire of the target audience. One of the most traditional typefaces is the font ‘times new roman’ this is the original font which people used to most commonly use. Today it is still considered a font used in many professional circumstances. 

The font is generally one of the most important features of a webpage, it is the thing that people will look at the most. Your font also connects to how someone will judge your site, they will often suss out your site from the font type used. For example if your website is supposed to be a serious site and you use a ‘fun’ font such as comic sans, which uses curly off track lines, it will not be taken seriously, even if the content is written by the most intelligent, academic person on the earth. You also want to make your font read able, so using a ‘silly’ or ‘fun’ font all the way through the content isn’t a good idea, even if your web page is aimed at kids. You still want the content to be clearly visible and understandable to the audience throughout.

Here is a diagram shown which illustrates some of the concepts that are used to pull ‘typography’ together. 

Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton. (2008-2011). Typography. In: Web Style Guide. 3rd ed. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 205-221.

Legibility 

The legibility within typography is making sure that the characters all stand out from one another. for example: A capital I looking like number 1, in this scenario it could be tricky for the user to understand what the content is saying, making it more difficult and time consuming for the reader. Is the text too big too small, in a readable font, using bold, underlining and italics in the right context. Are all the characters aligned with each other properly, ect. Legibility plays an important role in the design of the font on the page, is it appealing to the readers eye and not making it difficult in any way for the user to understand. 

Another thing to remember is how the font will look once the page it is viewed on other media’s, these could be, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, paper, posters ect. Font does change slightly depending on the size of the devices you are looking at it on, but as long as you have considered a font which is easy to read and understand, then the change won’t be dramatic and will still be a good design.

Choosing typefaces

Choosing a typeface is possibly one of the hardest choices to make when designing your web page. Popular choices seem to be Times New Roman or Georgia for main body text and Verdana or Arial for headings and other large text. Typefaces such as Georgia and Verdana were specially made for legibility on the a computer screen as the heights are very much the same and give off a strong look.  

In typography there are two typefaces, these are sans-serif and serif font. The difference is serifs use lines at the end of there characters. Depending on who and what your target audience is, depends on the serif right for your page.

Open Source. (26/10/2011). Sans-serif. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif. Last accessed 27/10/2011.