WRA 210 January 20, 2011
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Transcript of WRA 210 January 20, 2011
TODAY
1)Icebreaker IV: The Wrath of Ice
2)Check-in
3)Some words on “living” on the web
4)The readings
5)Homework
6)Group time
ICEBREAKER
This one might be a little tricky. IDK. But say
your name, then tell us your favorite font.
Mine changes from time-to-time, but as you
might guess from seeing my web pages, my
favorites right now are
for flair, for on-screen text, and
for print.
CHECKING IN
The lecture/discussion part of today‟s class
will be fairly short. I want to give you time to
talk to your partner and work a bit in
groups/talk to me in your groups (if you need
to).
Remember your due dates:
Module 2: January 27th (and we present that
day)
Module 1: Feb. 10th
ANY QUESTIONS
Before we get started?
Did everyone get an Engrade link and manage
to sign up? I had to send some of them through
ANGEL (ugh) because MSU Webmail went
down during my office hours (double ugh).
Any other questions or concerns brewing out
there? I know some of you were a little worried
about the last reading: it‟s okay if it‟s a little
confusing right now. It‟ll get better. If you‟re
totally lost, though, we should talk.
2 THE WEB
LIVING ON THE WEB
We now live in a world where it‟s not quite as
difficult to establish a web presence as it once
was.
Services like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn
etc. offer easy ways to join visible
communities, and blogging platforms like
Tumblr, Posterous, WordPress, Xanga, etc.
allow for the creation of blogs.
For many, this is enough of a web presence.
BUT IF YOU WANT…
… to build a career as a web designer, and be
taken really seriously…
… or if you want to run an online business…
… or if you just want to look very polished and
stand out from all the people using those
services I mentioned before…
…you will need your own domain and hosting.
DOMAINS & HOSTING
A web domain is, quite simply, just an address.
For example, I own, among others,
www.phillalexander.com. Owning that address
means that no one else can make a
phillalexander.com. I bought it via GoDaddy,
though there are many, many options for
buying domains.
But to have an actual website and not just an
address, you need a place to point it.
HOSTING
Students have hosting while at MSU through
AFS. You can access this a number of ways:
1) through the folder on the desktop of our
machines in 317
2) Through netfiles.msu.edu
3) Via FTP to afs.msu.edu with your
username/password
USING MSU HOSTING
… is fine for most student needs.
It has some limitations, though. It can, at
times, be slow. You only get, I believe, 100
MB. And if you use MSU webspace, you are
bound by a much more rigid Terms of Service
(ToS) than you would be with paid hosting.
Still, it‟s free. So that‟s a plus. And it‟s fairly
easy access. To determine if you need more,
you should ask yourself what you‟ll be doing
and how many visitors you think you‟ll
regularly have.
SO, TO SUMMARIZE…
I wouldn‟t recommend that all of you run out and
buy hosting, but if you do NOT own a web
address, and you think you‟re at all interested in
getting serious about having a web presence, I
would highly recommend securing one now and
using it to point to whatever you generate as
part of this class.
You‟re looking at approximately a $10 a year
investment (cheaper with coupons or if you wait
on a good sale). And if you wait and find out
someone beat you to the address you want
later, you‟ll be sad. I actually had to do a timed
poach to get one of my addresses.
READINGS
THE READINGS
I chose these readings to give you a general
sense of how “starting” to create a website is
viewed out on the web (as a transition into
what I just said ), then to give you some
really basic initial pointers.
So we can disregard the first reading, unless
you have specific questions about it.
Anyone have questions about it?
10 Principles
I have a series of short questions about this
reading, followed by a few more involved ones.
So the quick-fire questions:
1) Were any of you surprised by any of the ten?
2) Did the image of where the reader‟s eyes
tend to go when looking at a page resonate
with you as you thought about your own
reading (as you read the article, even?)
3) As users, do you disagree with any of these
points?
MORE QUESTIONS
Two deeper level questions:
1) The reading tells us, point blank “Web users
are impatient and insist on instant
gratification.” Generally, we know this to be
true already, but as a designer, think about this
dilemma: you‟re presenting your work, and
you‟re a writer. You have no choice but to
include significant amounts of text. How might
you use these 10 principles to guide you in
such a way that you can make a portfolio of
writing work?
The other question
Two deeper level questions:
2) There are a number of things that are stated
as “dos” here (organize, use white space, obey
conventions, think about how images direct the
eye, use an economy of words, etc.). At the
same time, the engine that drives exceptional
design is innovation. Can you think of (or go
find) sites that obey some of these rules but
blatantly (and specifically) violate others and
maintain their effectiveness (or are even more
effective)?
How to Ruin a Design
I really just wanted you to see this and think about it
as you start working because it reinforces a “best
practice” while also defying one of the logics of
education.
You should ALWAYS talk to people about your work
and show them your work, but just as you wouldn‟t
ask just anyone to read over a paper for a class, you
want to be careful about who you talk to about your
designs. Design, to a large degree, is about taste– if
you expose your design to too many opinions, you
could end up making bad modifications based on
taste. I‟m going to tell a story now.
The Design Curve
Any other questions/comments about this
reading? About any of the readings?
HOMEWORK
FOR TUESDAY
Read for class: The Broken Window Theory , Preserving our Digital Pre-History, Re-writing History…, and Whitespace
Remember that this is probably going to be
the work weekend for your Module 2. Make
sure you and your partner have plans.
Your Twitter Exit question for today:
What web domain do you own/would you buy
and why?
The rest of class…
… is yours to work in your groups/make
plans/come and ask me questions.
If you wish to relocate, that‟s fine. If you have
questions, I‟ll hang out here until every one gets
their answers OR Matt shows up to teach his
class.
Have a good weekend!
A FOOTNOTE
Picking the Super Bowl teams by logo/colors/unis
Is cleaner, and more
visually pleasing,
than the odd font
used for this C
But orange and blue is much more versatile than nasty mustard
yellow and green. So the NFC title game is a style “pick „em.”
WRAweb picks the Bears because of Dr. Blythe‟s loyalty. Plus this
bear head logo, while not amazing, is better than the cheese head
Packer dealie.
Footnote continued
It‟s tough to pick this one based
on logo alone. Unlike with that
clearly outdated Chicago pointed
C, both of these logos are
contemporary. The Steelers win
out only because of the difficult to
see NY behind Jets (outline only
letters=bad) and the fact that it‟s
the US Steelworker‟s logo, too.
While the Jets have a very nice “old school” look to their uniforms,
the Steelers really run away with the color scheme. Black/gold/white
is a phenomenal and optimal color palette for any design. But the real
kicker is this totally boss Steelers throwback logo:
OF COURSE…
If logos and color schemes were the only determining factor, the SB would likely have been:
HAVE A GREAT
WEEKEND!