Week 10B

10/28/15

Today we learned about CSS. It means cascading style sheets and they are used to style web pages.

Week 10A

10/26/15

Today we started to learn html. We then did a little tutorial that looked like this:

Then we made our resume in html. So far mine looks like this:

Week 9B

10/21/15

Today we had a critique for the 404 project.

People said

background is too bright,
information is too busy,
stop sign is too blurry,
stop sign may not be needed,
Typography is off,
not all information  is needed,
2 islands are probably not needed,
too much guidance,
maybe have the lines on the map?

Week 8B

10/14/15

Today we continued to work on the 404 project. I found a good map of Hawaii in a The New Book of Knowledge volume 10 JK. I decided to only use the main island of Hawaii.

Then I cut out the island in photoshop and placed it in my project. I got rid of the old maps for the most part, there is a pin from the globe map that I used as a post for the stop sign. I moved some things around to try to add a little bit of balance. Then I used layer masks to color the islands green. For the background I was going to make it a large gradient that looks like an old map, but I'm now thinking I might make the background a blue grid like a sea chart. 

Week 8A

10/12/15

Today we continued to work on the 404 assignment. I made a vector graphic in Illustrator to show directions. It is the squiggly line part of the thumbnail idea.

I wasn't satisfied with the map chosen after sing it scanned. Because of this, I found a small globe with a needle in it from an old history text book as used that as a place holder. I think an iconic island like Hawaii or Japan would be a better fit for this project.

Then I placed the globe where I wanted it and resized and moved some of the text. Then I placed the vector objects in 4 different parts because it didn't look too good when I placed it all at once. The parts were the text, "you are here at http://mapquest/fakeurl", the text, "you should go ... home index back", the arrow, and the x and squiggly lines. I also kept the old map off to the side if I ever decide to use it for anything else for this project.

Week 7C

10/11/15

We were assigned to watch little informational movies about photoshop during the weekend. I wrote the information in my notes:

Week 7B

10/7/15

Today we experimented with photoshop and the clone stamp tool. We also learned how to animate like an amateur with photoshop.

Then we used are photos and scanned images to start the 404 error project.

Week 7A

10/5/15

Today we were assigned a new project. We are design a 404 error page for a website of our choosing. When looking around I found some websites that had neat ones and others that were boring. For some of those boring ones I sketched out some better ones. The websites are mapquest, FBI.gov, bath fitter, and animal planet. I liked the mapquest and bath fitter ones better than the others, but I think the mapquest one does the best job of displaying information.

Week 6C

10/3/15

Today we had to go to an event where 5 professional designers would talk about their work. The first to present was Joni Trythall who talked about SVGs on the web. SVG stands for scalable vector graphic. This means that it could react to resizing in a web page. One example of this was a SVG of the coke-cola logo, among other logos, was made with the company name under it appeared in a full sized web browser but was resized to be smaller the company name could be programed to disappear so the logo could have more room. These can be created in inline which is said to be the best for editing SVGs because you can use css to program them. You can even animate them which I found amazing.

The second presenter Casey comes from Stratisburg. She used to work for HERR's snack foods and designed their packaging. Now she works for the Infantree which works with businesses to design products and logos. She talked about her process which was do research, brainstorm, and then design. She told us about a personal experience that showed just how important it is to work with your client.

Then the next speaker was Ering who was also a Millersville student. She talked about her personal experience in finding work after college. I personally felt she seemed a bit too negative in her delivery of her speech. Having said that, she teaches some valuable lessons like, ask for help early, stay organized, and don't burn out.

Up next was Sam who talked about flexbox. Flexbox is a program used mostly to display information in a web page. Actually it looks like very good that I would maybe like to use someday if I ever need to design a web page. My only fear is that the coding may be difficult.

And finally was Sofia from NASDAQ. She talked about web design and how necessary it is to work with your clients and use their feedback. She talked about her process of learning to understand problems, formative research, sketching and wire framing then designing, and then receiving feedback.

Week 6B

9/30/15

Week 6A

9/28/15