Setting their sites online!
11/01/2010
Geoff Millar designed the winning website
Budding computer whizzes at the College got the chance to put their web-design expertise into practice recently, after West Sussex-based Psychotherapeutic Counsellor Katherine King challenged a group of IT students to design and build a new interactive website for her counselling practice.
Katherine, who has two practices in the area, approached Ramiz Alihodzic, Lecturer in Computing and IT, with the idea of commissioning students to design and build the site, which formed part of their coursework on their Level 3 BTEC National Award in IT throughout the autumn term. Twenty four students took part in the project, with one site being chosen to go live at the end of the project.
Students' initial ideas were produced in response to a written brief from Katherine, detailing the look and feel she hoped to achieve. These ideas were then developed from the drawing board, into fully functioning websites, which combined a corporate look with students' own innovative ideas. Katherine said "I was very impressed with both the creativity and professionalism of their designs, but also the students' willingness to take on board my feedback to build a site that fulfilled all my commercial needs."
After working alongside the students all term to ensure site development was on track throughout the design process, Katherine then had the difficult task of choosing one design to go live as her new website. She chose the site created by twenty six year old Geoff Millar, because "Geoff's design impressed me with its professional look, ease of navigation for clients and communication of my counselling philosophy." Kristian Thomson and Lauren Hubbard's sites were chosen as runners up.
After being made redundant from his job in recruitment, Geoff enrolled on the BTEC course in September, to retrain for a new career in IT. He was thrilled that his design was chosen, saying "I am very pleased to have won the competition, and feel I have learnt and achieved a great deal in a short amount of time, thoroughly enjoying the process along the way. I have found the course both interesting and challenging, and look forward to developing my skills further in the future." After completing his BTEC course this summer, Geoff's next goal is to enrol on a Degree course at the University of Sussex.
Following the site's launch on 18 December 2009, Katherine is confident of the project's success, saying "It has been a very positive personal experience. This project has produced a website which I believe will help promote my work in West Sussex and which also demonstrates the College's commitment to their students achieving commercial success."
To visit the site logon to www.katherinekingcounselling.co.uk or click here for more information on the range of courses offered at the College.
