Week 02 - 2D

Class Format

Todays class consisted of gathering, evaluating and collating information as a group exercise. We also looked at design choices with regard to customisation of this blog. The focus was on working collectively and collaboration.

 

Group Exercise

Access Sources of Information

The class divided into two groups which then collected a list in general information sources. The purpose of the exercise was to also gather sources specific to our own practice and interests. Following is a list of the gathered general sources and a couple of links specific to the individuals in our group.

• You can visit a librabry to look at magazines, books – Michelle Turner is the creative arts library specialist at CDU
• Forums and discussion boards
• Industry specific websites
• Local Galleries
• Communicating with other artisit and using web sites like:
• Youtube.
• Whitepapers.
• Eyemagazine.
• International Journal of Design.
• Graphis. - Cherill.
• The design files. - Queenie.
• Design You Trust. - Me.
• My Modern Met. - Me.
• Kat Vond. - Andre.

The goal of this exercise was to gain an appreciation of evaluating and collating resources. In my own practice this organisation occurs at two levels, as the information comes in and where it ends up. My RSS feeds for example are catorgorised as design, art, technology, science and news. I think of this as a top level organisation of information. Resources are then collated in specific groups and types. For example collected video tutorials are sub catorgorised according to the program they are related to, likewise with document tutorials. Other resources like brushes, patterns, samples and articles are similarly sub categorised.

 

Practical - Design Choices

Create a background design for your blog. Use any tools you wish. Put the results and a paragraph of description in blog. Address these 3 points of difference in both designs;


• Shape
  - Cover the top half of the browser window.
• Media
  - Photographic
• Style
  - Realistic, static (does not scroll with the content)

This was is one of the first things I did when I set up this blog. The image is one of mine  and I like the way my cropping and placement situated the lightening bolt beneath my about image. Of course this is more clearly revealed when the user scrolls the content up. The other thing I did straight away was alter the eppearance of links in all of their states (inactive, hover and visited). I found an issue when trying to make my image cover the entire top half of the browser window from the blogger template window - it just does not seem possible. At least not wide enough to cover the enormous monitors in front of us. 2560 pixels across seems to be outside the limit of the underlying template. Custom CSS can be written into the template, which I would assume falls inline and thus over-rides any external style sheet. But, I am yet to crack that little bit of code which is placing a 930 width pixel limit on the on the entire 'content' or 'body' tags. Again with the assuming, I would say the limit would situated with one of these tags. Anyhow, from a design perspective I have gone for a grey palette, keeping the format neutral and emphasising the content. A dull white text is perhaps not the best choice for for large bodies of text on a black background in terms readability and possible eye strain. Cue the sardonic giggle.

 

Research

Video

 

Here is a video about customising your blogger layout. The audio is horrible and difficult to understand. The customisation is limited to the blogger template editor and as such did not solve my problem detailed above. The author is using some nice screen capture software, which honestly is about the only positive thing I can say about this video. Do not watch '...and everything'.

 

Images

 

Here and here are some examples of bloggers who have the same problem as me. A problem which I have elected to ignore for the time being. Not many people expand their web browser to the full width of their screen and less have 27 inch screens in front of them. Besides which the blogs look as I intended on my machine at home - a 21.5 inch iMac.

 

Reflection

The focus for this semester is biased toward collaboration which is taking the form of group exercises at the moment. Further to this, the term 'collaboration' may be sub-categorised as how information sources are gathered, assessed and organised. Assessment requires evidence of this occurring both collectively and individually.
Working with templates I have always found frustrating as there always seem to be hidden limitations lurking beneath the surface. Part of my motivation for undertaking this course was to fine tune my web development skills as I do not want to rely on the use of templates. Designing for the web brings the control freak out in me.