I did the assignment for chapter 6 in the dreamweaver book and when I test it out in the browser it works but for some reason when I go directly to the link in explorer it doesn’t look right. I’m not sure what’s going on with that but here are what the links are supposed to be.

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/chap_06/abouttea.html

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/chap_06/aboutus.html

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/chap_06/brewingtea.html

the link to my storyboard for the redesign is:

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week6/storyboard_foge.gif

I thought that the article: Blasting the Myth of the Fold, by Milissa Tarquini, was good. I hadn’t really though about placement much in relation to a “fold” in a webpage. I guess you just automatically assume that everyone does just know to scroll down and don’t think of it as a possible issue.

The article: Search Engine Placement Tips, by Danny Sullivan was very informative on how to choose your keywords. It helped with picking keywords for a particular audience.

I really like the article: A Not-So-Sweet Tale of Digital Type, by Andrew Twigg. I really like typography and sometimes I want to use script fonts or other custom fonts and have a hard time “letting go” of this in designs for web.

The 12 rules articles was also really helpful because it pointed out things that I may have not considered either about how to choose names that will stick with people or reach a broader audience or search criteria.

the link to my animation is

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week6/animation/anim.gif

I updated my banner and the link is still the same but the design changed a little. So this is the version that I submitted for the contest.

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week5/banner1.jpg

the links to my banners are:

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week5/banner1.png

and

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week5/banner2.png

So far I think this is a really good book. It’s not loaded with technical terms that you can’t understand if you’re not a programmer. It’s very simple and easy to read. The principles and elements of design were a little bit of a review for me but it’s always good to go back over the basics of good design and compisition.

The article: http://bokardo.com/archives/five-principles-to-design-by/

was helpful because I think that it is hard for most people to distinguish between art and design. I had a hard time at first when I was getting into graphic design because I wasn’t looking at functionality as a key element in designing. I was going more on asthetic appearences and personal preferences. Sometimes you have to let go of things even if you do really like the way it looks. If it doesn’t “fit” in the design the don’t include it just to include it. That was a good tip that the author mentioned in the other article. (8 Web Design Tactics to Help You When You’re Stuck,  by Matthew Inman)

The link for my navigation bar assignment is

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week5/navbar.html

and the link for my in-class assignment with the drawing tools is

http://bcts-potomac.aacc.edu/CAT/CAT18/week5/drawing_tools.png

I have two ideas for my final project. The first is just a digital portfolio of my work. The second is to create a website for my brother’s lawn care business. I think I will most likely end up making the site for his business.

I really found the Vincent Flanders articles/videos/website amusing and also kinda helpful. He gives you examples but also explains why they are not good design (when it’s not completely obvious). Some things may seem better in concept but you need the reaction of users to realize that maybe you need to change something. Sometimes you just need to see things from another person’s perspective to understand why the concept may not be working.

I thought that the site he pointed out called moire,

http://web.archive.org/web/20060613061524/http://moire.ch/

was just horrible. Everytime you scrolled over a different link, which were just a list of text, the whole background page turned a different color. The problem with that is that the links were very close together on the page so you were basically on this kaliedescope of flashing red, blue, and green as you scrolled over the page. You really couldn’t even look at it. I in fact didn’t even click on the links because the first page was just to overwhelming for me to be interested in finding out what the page was about.