Wee8 Faculty Template Design

Below is my first attempt at this design exercise.   I tired to create a somewhat subtle background – to keep the site from appearing too flat.  The small image of crew team is added to suggest that at AACC there are a lot of moving parts that require team work in this very active community.

http//bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/cat18/week8/gsherry_faculty_template.jpg

Week8 Readings

The article below was quite informative and beautifully written, unusual combination when it comes to writings on technical issues

Dao of Web Design – a timeless article from A List Apart:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/

Principles of Beautiful Web Design:
Chapter 5: Imagery

Jasons book will continue to serve as an excellent quick reference on a number of design topics to keep me on track.  His treatment of CSS and borders should prove useful as well.

Week8 In-Class Design Comp

This is a good exercise in getting us one step closer to designing our web sites and provides some additional familiarity with the program FireWorks.

The results can be seen here:

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/cat18/week8/design.png

I notice that I need to have Quicktime software runnning to view this file on my machine at home… and that I could not save it as a HTML file in Fireworks.  I wonder why Fireworks would not allow use to save the file as a HTML file?  Would  this not make it easier for more people to view it?

Using CSS for Design (Week7)

CSS – or Cascading Stylesheets - are a set of predefined rules that guide the design, type and layout of your page. CSS can be used to control basic page defaults, the layout of a page, the design of a menu system, and much more.

The two videos suggested for CSS review include:

• Intro to CSS ( approx 30 mins ) – a great overview of semantics and selectors, done in CS3, but it covers some of the basic concepts!
• Intro to CSS ( part 2 – approx 30 mins ) – from comp to finished product, also done with CS3, but covers many of the basics!

I think that the information contained in these two Greg Rewis videos are so fundamental that I would suggest viewing them before ever touching the DreamWeaver software.  They provide what Adobe rarely provides: the theory behind the design so that you can adapt to numerous design opportunities/challenges.  (Greg manages to get you through the dry spots of CSS via humorous comments as he moves along through his presentations.)

I would go one step further.  View ealy in our CAT274 program and then again during Week 7.

Week7 Lession5 – Navigation

Core web material is setting up links and navigation bars.  This chapter 5 also introduces the role of AJAX (not the cleaner), and Spry in simplifying the amount of code needed in a web site.  I suppose that this is a good thing…as user benefits are really ever mentioned in Adobe’s manuals or the reason behind a given way of doing things.  Adobe’s sense of humor is evident once again in its estimates of needed time to complete any given chapter – in this one one hour.

Granted I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer…but I find the one hour estimate may be good if you work for Adobe and you were part of the design team.

The result of this exercise can be seen here .

Week7 Typography

Jason once again offers up a goldmine of practical  advice when it comes to considering choices regarding Typography – one of the most overlooked aspects of design.

(I was critical earlier regarding the publishers’ pricing of this book; after all it is a paperback (not hardbound) printed on low quality recycled paper, but I can say that Jason definitely delivers on the content side!)

Chapter 4, Typography – Principles of Beautiful Web Design

Jason’s additional value is the sharing of very useful typography sites including both free and paid for sites.

Recommended free sites can be found at:

• 1001 Fonts at http://www.1001fonts.com/
• DaFont at http://www.dafont.com

and recommended fee based sites inclue:

• Veer at http://www.veer.com/products/type
• MyFonts at http://www.myfonts.com

If the above links do not work please try these:

http://www.1001fonts.com/

http://www.dafont.com

http://www.veer.com

http://www.mydonts.com

Week7 Matt Brown Article

The Matt Brown article contains some good basics, but at the same time this article appears somewhat dated.  Clues  include no date noted in the article as to when it was first published, and the mention of a company called Macromedia – which I think has been off the scene now for some time.

Ironically – one of his points is to make sure that past users can access old links, but the links to one of the suggested authors below – the last author, is a broken link.  Probably due to the ravages of time…especially in Internet time, like dog years – it was probably active some 20 years ago.  But you will see some familiar names on his list of recommended designers, and it is always good to see someone pay attribution for some of the ideas presented.

He talks about using proper font sizes for older audiences, yet he did not go on to  suggest what they might or should be – I wish he had.   He notes the importance of proof reading…so I did find it somewhat amusing that this advice falls under the heading of “Do as I say and not as I do.”  since his article contains one or two typos.

One of his most important pieces of advice, and a good take away – I think – is to design for the average user.

Vincent Flanders

Robin Williams

Jacob Nielsen

Jacqueline Hamilton (Be sure to check out the links on this page.)

Week7 & Gif Annimation

Gif animation is an interesting low cost technology….I found the in-class exercise somewhat mechanical in nature, yet we needed to start somewhere and I did gain at least a visual sense of what is possible.

Because it was basically a fill in the dots exercise,  I did not gain a real understanding on how to create an animation from scratch.  Obviously this exercise was intended only to introduce us to Gif animation.

Later I will need to research the web to see I can can find additional information on getting started with this technology as I see that it will be part of our Web projects as well.  Or I might benefit from investing time deconstructing the school exercise as to the individual images used and sequence.

The results of the exercise are posted below:

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/cat18/week7/anim.gif

Banner Project – Finals 2 Versions x 2 Sizes

I want to thank everyone for their feedback on my images during yesterdays’ class.  I went ahead and incorporated most of the suggestions creating a stronger presentation.  Thanks again.  Below are the gif images as a result of those modifications.

Week 6 Articles

Blasting the Myth of Above the Fold – by Milissa Tarquini

In her article – she does a good job outlining how different interest groups can be out of phase in a fast moving industry going through a lot of technological change.  The interest groups here are designers, users and commercial parties such as advertisers.

Best practices take time to establish and often more time because of the challenge associated with changing relevant human behavior.  She offers good practical advice and guidelines on moving forward regarding “the placing of the fold”.  Essentially saying to be flexible – that users are more flexible than are currently being given credit.

Search Engine Placement Tips – by Danny Sullivan

David Letterman had it right.  His top ten list.  He never had a top 11 list.  After 10 you begin to loose or not attract your audience in the first place.

Good practical advice.  The general uncertainty or lack of visibility into exactly how search engines create rankings has created work for independent consultants to advise commercial firms (or non profit firms for that mater as well).  Search engine firms are notoriously secretive about their hard earned algorithms used to create top ten or any other ranking schemes.

But the author provides good basics that need to be considered and I am glad to have him close on a positive note in that search engines are just one tool in promoting any business,  and that one should not obsess on just this tool.

Five Principles to Design By…

I could not agree more with Joshua Porter’s sentiment that design is not Art.  He puts the focus on problem solving where I think it rightly belongs.  The only point I questoin is his observation that the artist only works for themselves.

This may be a bit narcissistic.  If someone dedicates themselves to be a novelist – then the reader does matter and it is not all about the author.

In other words – you write with the intent to be read (even if you elect not to publish).  If you sing and work at singing as a profession – you sing to be heard.  There is an audience in mind, and great performers will tell you that their most sublime moments are when the author/performer and the audience intersect.

If you are a painter – you may not value the opinion of many nor even that of the few, but you do paint in a context – and you are communicating.  Communications takes both a sender and a receiver of the utlimate message (visual, audible, etc.)

8 Web Design Tactics to Help You When You’re Stuck

More good practical advice.  Two I especially like: know when to take a break and walk away from a design that may not be working and give yourself and the design some space.  Second = pull out the sketch pad first…this can say a lot of time before just jumping into the program of the moment.