Drenched with Ink

Well, this is a new world…the internet. There are billions of people online, and the hardest thing to do is to keep anyone’s attention for more than a millisecond today. This is where problem solving comes along. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to find a way to get the information that people want to them, and to get the client’s goals accomplished. There are a ton of websites out there that does exactly what yours does, although is it good, bad, or just plain boring?

With all the technology out there it is becoming harder and harder to build effective websites for any company, because there is just that…too much technology. Our job as designers is to create an environment for the client that encompasses all of the client’s needs, goals, and messages, and do it in a way do that anyone who visits the site will stay long enough to view it, buy it or talk about it with their friends. Right now the big thing is Flash sites, and client’s want Flash driven sites because they are cool, but we all know most of the time it’s not needed.

The client is trying to sell it’s wares/image online and with blogging, RSS feeds, interactive flash sites, and new technolog, these sites are always changing. We as designers/developers have to keep up with all the new technology and web information, to keep our client’s ahead of the game. The hardest thing to do is to keep up. If you do a print add, you have a finishing point…the add is complete, then it is printed..same with video, tv, newspapers. But online we can change an entire website in minutes to reflect whatever changes the client wants…that is power unheard of before.

I would have to say our biggest tasks as designers and developers is to keep up with technology and try not to offend anyone. I mean, being able to reach millions of people in a matter of seconds is what the internet is all about now. Communication. Let’s just try to get the message across as well.

I hope I have explained and have answered the questions listed in the assignment. If anyone has questions, or if there is something I should clarify, please let me know.

Here is my research. I looked at more than five, but these are the ones that stood out.

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=200/200.css

I went to this site when it was mentioned to me multiple times by others. This particular page really stuck with me I loved the design simplicity and really think it would be a good way to incorporate silhouettes into my design the way that the author used ice blocks as the text shells. I would like to use this idea for the basis of my site design.

http://www.alazanto.org/

I really liked the header staying in place in this design. I think I might be able to incorporate that effect in a scrolling list of information. I kind of like the effect of the site staying put while the info scrolls up. I think if I can put a link back up to the top at intervals or at every 3 paragraphs that would help the user get back to certain parts of information could be really cool. I however do not like the fact that the nave scrolls up with it. I would want mine to be stationary. I also liked the read more parts, though I believe it could be improved.

http://www.yellowlane.com/

I liked the effect of a mini gallery of thumbnails on the side instead of being the entire page like I see on most pages. This could be used for something, although I’m not sure how I could work this in, I would like to use this idea.

http://www.alistapart.com/

I really liked the cleanness of this site and the navigation. The fact that everything stayed in the same place when you navigated made it feel very clean and user-friendly. I especially liked the top nav bar that created a colored bar over the mouse over and when you clicked on the button. I do wish it could have changed color when it was stationary, and the mouse-overs were different color from it. If I used anything from this site, that would be what I would use, the bars that show you what page you were on and perhaps the mouse-overs too.

http://www.leftjustified.net/

Wow! I really liked the style of this site and what more can I say…the interactivity was sweet even though there wasn’t a lot to do I felt thoroughly entertained. I thought the design was awesome, the navigation simple and easy, and the site in an hour located here
http://leftjustified.net/site-in-an-hour/ was really cool. I think this is a way for me to provide method of delivery for the product I would like to base my site on.

I hope I have explained and have answered the questions listed in the assignment. If anyone has questions, or if there is something I should clarify, please let me know.

Ok, here is my problem, if it is ok… I notice that there is a lack of promotion and interest in independent online comic books. I don’t mean in indy comics like smaller publishing companies, but serial comics made by amateurs and wandering the internet all alone a swimming in the sea with all the other gobbledy-gook. I propose to create an Amateur Online Comic Book site that will take various amateur comics and showcase them and allow visitors to view bits of the comic on this site with some information on the creator and links to the full comic sites.

I think this is a problem that needs to be solved and I feel this is a more acceptable topic for me to base a website off of. Please let me know if there are problems, concerns, ideas, or comments. Thanks!

A couple of quarters ago I designed a website for a comic book site in User Centered Design, and I was thinking of maybe actually working on building that site. We had to come up with an idea for our 3 flash classes, and my idea was to make a digital comic reader using Flash. I think that the problem I will try to solve will be delivery of the digital comic reader… a site that will allow access to the reader, or a selling point…either way.

So I think that if I combine the three projects from User Centered, this class, and the upcoming Flash classes to create a long-term project and portfolio piece. Any comments or suggestions would be helpful.

Well, I was looking for RSS feeds about floating layouts last night and I found a few sites that were cool…go figure Berera street had one. There really aren’t a lot of sites that focus on just floated layouts, so they just have articles, but I set them up for a RSS feed anyway. Did anyone find any cool ones?

I just realized that I did not state in my previous blog, the importance of another subject I would like to pursue in this class. I really want to know how to write code that will work on all the websites. I want to know the process, how to check, and how to fix problems correctly. Does it require external style sheets? What happens if I change the CSS for one browser? Does it affect all browser views? I primarily use a Mac, so when I look at what I built for Firefox, I am shocked when I see it in IE. When I try to fix the IE so it works, the Firefox looks bad. I realize now that this is my main goal in this class

There a quite a few things I would like to learn from this class. I know some of these we will cover, but I list them here because these are what I would like to learn.

1. I would like to learn how to add a blog to a website

2. I would like to learn to add a print function to information on my website

3. I would like to learn about host/server setup

4. I would like to be well versed in CSS/HTML when the class is finished, enough to be quite proficient with them.

5. I would like to know more about website creation in general. The correct usage of different methods. ie., when to use forms, columns, floats, fixed,…etc.

After reading Mr. Bowman’s article, I took a few minutes to get my thoughts together on my  own creative process. Much like Mr. Bowman, I like to have all my thoughts jotted down as thumbnails before I proceed. From that point on it is a hunt for the assets I need after I decide on which thumbnail I want to go with. I will usually define my needs in categories like art assets, size, information…etc. After the assets have been ascertained, I then proceed to build. This is a bit tricky for me, because I only have one html class under my belt, so I am mostly referring to my artistic creative flow. The processes that I agree with Mr. Bowman on are in getting your thoughts down on paper. I believe this is the most important part, because you really need to have a blueprint to work from to save time and frustration.

This is an introduction to my mind and way of thinking. I’m not really sure if I care if you agree with me or not, as long as you have your own thoughts.

intermediate scripting class blog.