Day of Design Write-up

On March 1, 2014 we had the choice of attending Skype presentations from 2 out of 3 professional designers, and I attended presentations by Aaris Sherin and Jennifer Alrich.

Aaris Sherin is the author of Sustainable Design, which is the subject she mainly presented about. She featured a few people who took simple ideas of sustainability and turned them into successfull businesses. One includes an illustrator from the UK who designed his own characters that were made into stuffed toys, which are part of the fair trade organization in Nepal. Sherin said that fair trade has the most potential because it makes the best out of an imperfect world. I really like her idea of sustainable design, because I believe in going green to protect the earth, and integrating this into my potential career would be very exciting.

The next presenter, Jennifer Aldrich, is a Content Strategist and UX editor at Schoolwires, Inc.She started out with a basic introduction to how she got to this career, then went into the nitty gritty about UX design, which I found to be very interesting. I didn't realize that is is comprised of many different careers, and that it is best to have experience with several different fields of design. For example, a Content Strategist and UX designer edit wireframes to ensure usability of new designs, collaborate with other departments with areas of improvement, conduct remote and in-house usability research with clients, and analyze Google Analytics Data. She also gave other advice such as creating several social media accounts to follow leading industry professionals and start professional networking, don't expect to get your dream job right after college, and don't be afraid to try new things outside of your degree. I have to say it was very interesting to hear what she had to say, and it made me more interested in User Experience design, because it seems to be more of what I would like to do as a career. Of course, I still have time to figure that out, but I will definitely do more research on that field of design to see if it is really what I would like to pursue.

Week 14: Outside of Class

This weekend outside of class, I worked on finishing my web page, such as adding another illustration of a dog laying down, adjusted the color scheme of the top area title, and added the rest of the dog toys. Overall, I feel like alot more could be done to improve this project, which will require a lot more work, and I hope to use whatever feedback received from the critique and apply it to the changes I make in my Portfolio class next year. I really enjoyed making this web page, and look forward to making even more improvements to it as I am not completely satisfied with it quite yet. Below is my most recent web page that I will most likely present in class. I will post any further changes I make, however.

Week 14B: April 30

Today was another work day, but this time a few students from the Advanced design class came and showed the websites that they made for non-profit organizations. It was pretty interesting to see the advanced components that they added, and I hope to be able to add it to my own web page for Portfolio class next year. All I worked on today was some clickable images for the HTML, CSS, CC, and other page links that appear on the page and will be placed in the footer. I basically wanted to add dog toys to add to the effect of a playful dog theme. I only completed the first three, but I plan on adding a frisbee and possibly a rope toy or stick

Homework:
- web page 100% complete for next class and back up all work!!
- Final: Thurs. May 8 (My birthday!) 12:30-2:30

Week 14: April 28

Today was another in-class work day, but I got to meet up with the instructor to assess my web page. We basically went over the fundamentals of the web page from the notes I took, such as Page Fold, Single and Cue, Screen Type, Tone and Theme, and Layout. Some instruction I received was to change the lines of the boxes from solid to dotted, adjust the size of the illustration in the top header to better fit the 1024x768px screen size, and to change the color of the title to better accommodate the color of the dog. I was also told to move the Select a Design section to the bottom and create a grassy footer, which you can see below.

Homework:
-web page 75% done for next class
-final web page due May 5th, full class critique
- Finals week meeting time: Thurs. May 8 (my birthday!!), 12:30-2:30

Week 13-Outside of Class

This weekend outside of class, I reviewed the feedback I got in my webpage from the mid-critique and applied it to my revisions. I have gotten rid of the majority of my colored boxes, and instead used a line underneath each title. I also changed my background to a more subtle green paper texture, and added some more illustrations throughout the page. As far as my color scheme goes, I feel that lighter, more natural colors would work best. I am still not sure about it, but I feel better about this versus what I had before. My Select a Design box is hanging out at the bottom right now, mostly because I am still unsure of how to place it beside my wrapper, and will inquire about it class.

Week 13B: April 23

Today in class, we had a full critique of the progress of our websites, and received feedback on how to fix it. The feedback I received included not using so many colored boxes, change the position of the side bar (Select a Design), change color scheme, and the background wasn't quite working either. I plan on taking this feedback into consideration since I am still unsure of where I want to place my sidebar. I am thinking about placing it to the right of my wrapper as I have done in my sketches, but I am still figuring out how to do that.

Homework:

- web page 60% done by next class

Week 13A: April 21

Today was a work day once again, and I continued to work on improving my page. I am still figuring out the color scheme, but I am pretty sold on the arrangement of the boxes.

*Homework*:
-have web page 30-40% done in HTML/CSS working in the browser next class (change dog bowl to illustrations of dog, move dog bowl to Left of main content, dog paws as bullets)
- we will have a full class critique next class. Please have HTML and sketch ready to show to class