A Little Web Design 101

As we roll into Unit II, aka Hypertext, I decided to focus my web article on the most basic rules and element of web design. You can read the whole article for yourself here, or you can read the following summarized bullet points:

• There are many things you can't control that can affect the way your design appears on another's screen. A few of these include: the web browser, color depth of the monitor, and your operating system.
• A website's design is not completely contingent on your personal tastes, but on that of your AUDIENCE
• Remember to optimize everything you put on your page so that it will load quickly.
• Organizing and compartmentalizing your files is key to adding links and multiple pages to your site
• The use of various color combinations for your website can lead your audience to believe various things (like red is bad for financial websites but blue or gray is fine)
• Not everybody has the same fancy font as you! Keep it simple, and everyone will see it.

Seems easy enough, no? I haven't yet decided what topic I want to cover for this unit, but I'm leaning towards either the rules and regulations on how Scholarship funds are distributed to the student body or Why the health center has yet to expand. Any thoughts?

Happy Wednesday!

Last Call

As the big day gets closer and closer, I'm starting to feel more confident about my design. That begin said, I'm extremely glad we had the time in class to peer review our design project and ask any last minutes questions that we might have had because I would have missed some key elements. Today, I found out that:

a.) Our 500 word paper has to have a similar design to match our poster. Say what? I don't remember reading that in the instructions (which YES, I have read over many many times, thank you very much). I'm so glad I asked if we're turning in a hard copy because now I know I need to design my paper!

b.) Some parts of the metaphor I wanted to use didn't work for some people, but it's totally cool because I have a backup plan! I find it fascinating to see just how differently people think. A concept that made total sense to me didn't make sense to someone else, but it did to another person. This project forces you to think about all those people who don't see the point you're trying to make and find another way to make them understand.

c.) As it turns out, I do have enough text on my poster, but I need to add more information about Africa specifically.

d.) Turning a picture of a person into a silhouette totally counts as an original image as long as I'm the person who took the picture, which I was!

e.) Apparently, I am good at creating slogans. This will certainly come in handy when I'm working at my PR firm in New York. But, oh wait a minute, I'm not a graphic design or Ad/PR major nor does this reflect anything that I want to do with my life. Oh well, I guess since this is a writing class, I'm sure it's a skill that I will undoubtedly use in the near future. But is this really a writing class? Someone please remind me what creating an image has to do with writing again because I don't get it.

That's all gang! Best of luck on your projects, the one's I saw today had some truly great ideas!

Getting Money, Making Grades

Alright gang, it’s time to talk about a little something that’s been on my mind ever since this project was assigned. Care to take a guess as to what I’m referring to? I’ll give you a hint; it has to do with money and grades. That’s right, I’m talking about the “Whoever gets the most donations to their donation center will receive an automatic ‘A’ for this project” clause.

While I understand that the point of that is to provoke a little competition among the group, I find it an ethical dilemma. Theoretically, if I play by these rules, my poster can look pretty terrible, and my paper can be poorly written, but if I get mommy and daddy to donate a large sum of money for my project, then I automatically get an ‘A’, no questions asked. Any one else see a problem with this?

I’m going to be completely honest with you and say, the chances of me getting the largest sum of monetary donations are very slim. I’ve known from the beginning that the fate of my grade relies in the work that I put into it, and you know what, there’s a good chance that I could get an ‘A’ on this project without raising any money! I’m sure that all of you are putting legitimate work into this project and if you get an ‘A’, you've earned it. That being said, I find the clause moot, unethical and problematic that the contingency of our grade somewhat depends on how much money we earn.

Sometimes, You Need to Take a Step Back

As we draw closer and closer to the Unit I project being due (also known as Thursday, what??) I find myself starting to doubt my original design. Well not exactly doubt per say, but really starting to question the placement of my photos. I guess that’s a good thing because it means I’m paying attention and really trying to interact with my audience, but I also happen to think that sometimes, your gut reaction is the best. You know that little innate truthful voice inside of you that knows when something feels right and will work, but when you ask it why, it hasn’t the faintest idea? Well 9 times out of 10, that voice is right. And you know how if you over think things they always turn out worse? Yeah, that’s how I feel about this project. STOP OVER THINKING BRAIN.

On the plus side though, I did really like that fact that mini project #2 was all about working with the same sort of techniques that we’re going to need to use to ‘adjust’ our photos for the Unit I project. It was a really big foot in the door/realization that I needed to start working on my photos. Adding filters and changing the ‘look’ of a photo can be monumental to it’s appearance and can change how we feel about it. Take the example we did with color the other day in class. Change one small property and BOOM, you change the whole meaning of the photo.

What's In a Color?

Last class we talked about the importance of color. It's amazing that something we can't physically touch, hear or taste has such a profound impact on our emotions. A lot of the time, we can't even really explain why we have such a strong feeling towards one particular color or another; it's just a gut reaction, it feels right.

I recently read a book by Maggie Nelson called, Bluets, that is all about the color blue. She mentions several times throughout the novel that when people found out what she was writing, they would ask what there was to possibly write about, but if you think about it, the inspiration is everywhere! When we're sad or depressed, we're blue. Joni Mitchell had a blue album and Picasso had a blue period with his work.

Colors are everywhere and the feelings we associate with them are in a constant limbo depending on the shade, intensity, and placement of said color. It's crazy to think about how much we subconsiously care and think about something so small.

Operation: Fighting World Hunger

Alright Multimedia crew, we finally have our NGO: Operation USA! Woo-hoo, feel the excitement in the air!! Now I don’t know about any of y’all, but I know very little about this organization so I’ve decided to dedicate this blog post to finding out more information about OpUSA (as seen abbreviated around the web). I’m sure some of this info will come in handy for the Unit I project.

The organization got its start in 1979 when the Vietnamese Boat People were fleeting their war-torn country and Richard Walden (now the current CEO) and Llewellyn Werner decided to donate their time and funds to helping the refuges. While it’s true that OpUSA does airlift food to countries fighting starvation, they also offer many other types of aid including medical supplies, other relief supplies, and they even help with reconstruction of certain areas and clef pallet surgeries for children. So far, they’ve helped to give aid to over 99 countries!

Since they are an NGO, they receive no government aid and all of the money they receive relies on private donations. This means that OpUSA and more importantly, the refuges struggling in the Horn of Africa truly do need our contributions! With their home base located in Los Angeles, OpUSA has had several celebrity affiliations (including Frank Sinatra) and corporate donations, but the future of an organization like this depends on the generosity of the American people! I hope this project will be a success so that we can make a difference in some of these people’s lives and that OpUSA continues to give aid to those around the world who truly need it.

You Dropped Food on the Floor

I’m glad we were given the opportunity in class to talk about our ideas for our project with the people around us. My idea is to create a tree with the branches portion a sort of “choose your own ending” with everything eventually leading to DONATE. I think this type of graphic chart will both entice people to a.) Stop and interact with the board to really see what the cause is all about and b.) Hopefully donate! This is an example similar to what I had in mind that I saw at a hostel in Europe last fall:

I do have a few issues/concerns about how I’m going to include my images, but I think I’m going to either place them within the chart itself or make them kind of like the leaves on the tree. That way, I can have some fun with masking layers and coloring to make them look more “leaf” like. I’ve also thought about hanging certain items from the tree that are representative of the NGO or the African country that we choose to represent the fruit of the tree. Is this too much? Any thoughts are appreciated!

NGOs: Non-Grocery Operated

Alright gang. Now, I’m not sure how y’all are feeling about this project, but the deeper I seem to be searching for NGOs, the harder it is to find an ACTUAL NGO that accepts food donations. Call me crazy, but I definitely don’t think it should be this hard! If these organizations are out there, I certainly haven’t had any luck finding them. I did however find several NGOs dealing specifically in African countries, such as Twaweza Project and Kenyans for Kenya, but even these organizations don’t seem to be accepting food. As we said in class, putting food in a box and sending it oversees isn’t that complicated; it is however crazy expensive!

When I studied abroad in London, I received two packages from my parents through out my stay. Both where tiny, weighing less than 10 pounds each and both cost over forty dollars to send. Can you imagine the cost of sending giant boxes of food certainly weighing more than 10 pounds to Africa? Yikes! Too me, it just doesn’t seem worth it. All the money that’s being spent on packaging could have been used to support this cause!

The smarter, more efficient and ideal plan would be to raise solely monetary donations for a single NGO. We can certainly make sure that they have a staff of people on the ground in the countries that are being aided and that the money we’re sending IS being spent on food, but the mandatory prerequisite for this assignment that food donations must be excepted seems a bit lofty and unrealistic for the kind of modern society we live in today.