New Website Up!

http://kleisman.willyworld.org/NFP/

EDIT

this one actually works better
http://kleisman.willyworld.org/root%20folder/index.htm

it has a huge bug unfortunately where it likes to swap two tabs at the same time...i wasnt able to fix this so late in the process so i had to leave it.

PROCESS

Anyway, I tried to give it almost a coffee house feel/look to it, I'm not sure why, I think I just went to Starbuck's too many times. Anyway, I wanted the design to look progressive and homey, so that was the feel I went for. The original site had too much white and a lot of light blue, I, as I often do, replaced the white with black, added the tan color, and then gave it a kind of branded ornate symbol. I wanted the symbol to not really mean anything and be repeatable, so I simply browsed some online and made my own version with a few little leaf-like details added to it. I tried to give the site a professional yet very utilitarian feel, so the pages aren't made up entirely of huge colorful images like my last site. I tried to just think outside of the way I usually do things, but to me it still looks like one of my brainchildren. This does contain 15 pages total, with one downloadable document and 2 outside links (to google maps, of course).

HUGE PROBLEMS

Well, from the get-go I had issues using CSS styles and I simply could not get text to work correctly within my frames exported from fireworks, this works totally flawlessly on my last assignment, I still haven't figured out what I was doing wrong. Therefor all the type is rasterized, which took longer to make links and the sort work in the long run. My slices were never all named, so the site has copies of the same images over and over totalling the size of the site to around 7mb, which is huge and is totally my fault. As stated above, the Contact Us tab throws a huge error, this was my mistake that I caught but I didn't have time to fix as I first caught it at the beginning of class and I only could fix one or two pages in time for the upload. Another weird bug is the Location tab. I cannot explain at all why no rollover behavior works on it, I recoded the thing manually in CSS, and remade the page entirely in Fireworks twice, and even though it displays as having rollover behaviors attached to it, it does nothing in the browser.

Well, that was my self critique, I really wish I had done a better job but honestly I think, due mostly to lack of sleep this past month, I could have avoided all these issues by taking my time on it instead of having to constantly fix bugs (which took almost 2 entire days of reworking). So there you have it, it basically looks the way I wanted it to look, it just doesn't function perfectly unfortunately, I think it was a good learning experience regardless.

Processing...

Still working on the current assignment (probonothingamajig). Haz the layout pretty much figured out, yeah.

Enjoy.

Lawn Art Critiques

Lostintheweeds http://rachel.usi-artspace.com/lawnart/Lawn2.htm

I enjoy the title page, but the ten second auto redirect aspect, although novel, doesn't seem to solve a problem or have a real purpose. I do like the way the page looks quite a bit though.
On to specifics; The title type on pages is creative, but hard to read. The normal body types is difficult to read on the overture page against the white and red gradient. I like the ideas of this website but the execution isn't as tight as I'd like to see. I think the site could remain the same but add small things like a mouse-over effect on clickable buttons and tightening the padding on type so it fits within a certain area tighter such as on the animals page. Also, the images could be better quality, although the actual items depicted are great.

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HawianPunch Taz.usi-artspace.com

The animation is solid on this site, and I like the overall feel of it. The green color is unique and it matches the background close enough. I love how the flamingo follows your mouse by changing the image on mouse over. The whole castle theme could be hit or miss, but the photos are nice and the ideas are pretty good. There are a few small errors in spelling on a few pages and some paragraphs are lacking periods. A quick once-over would fix everything on the site I think.

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lmserra Haven't found link

The concept of my web page is simply different kinds of things you'd find on a finely tuned lawn. I have various decorations, birdhouses/feeders, fancy walkways, and the actual plants themselves.

I took all of my photos at my friends' uncle's house just off of Lincoln. They had a very nice, professionally kept lawn, and it seemed like everyone else did as well.

Anyway, onward to design; I wanted this project to look a tad more on the upscaled side, but still fun and colorful. I took photos and boosted contrast and color information as much as I could before it started to distort them. I wanted to try and push out the colors of fall as much as possible as well.

The basic layout of the website is a right side photo that serves as your link to the home page, and from the home page you can navigate to each page that contains a few photos and a bit of information about what I took photos of. The way I'm going to set it up is when you click your link, the link photo stays in the same exact position but the rest of the page changes, so if you clicked 'Decorations', all of the other photos under 'Decorations would disappear and be replaced with photos of decorations, with text to the right side, and you navigate back to home by simply clicking the Lawn Art heading.

My choices design wise regarding my style involved me thinking about what I personally think is visually simulating--order, black boarders, and bright colors. I wanted to convey contrast because I think that stands out in the reader's minds better. I also tried to increase the visual drama in this site by blurring out backgrounds and feathering edges of photos to force the reader's eye central. I believe this helps because many of the photos are taken near one another and it could be hard otherwise to confuse exactly what I'm trying to show the reader. I used quite a few blending and transparency effects to get the look I wanted, and I think I achieved the look I wanted almost exactly.

Blog Critiques

http://lserra.willyworld.org/

This layout is really nice, and the images are very high quality and very professional looking-- very clean. I like they funky patterned background as well. I think the thing that stands out the most for me is the U in 'art club' made of paperclips, I think that is pretty sweet.

The only problems I can see with this one, and this has been a problem with absolutely all of our layouts, is that the text isn't quite aligned perfectly. I can't tell if this is the computer's fault or the actual alignment in the code, so it is hard to actually harp on it. Overall I think this solves the problem of delivering info in an artistic way pretty well.
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http://epayne.willyworld.org/

The style in this poster is pretty neat, I personally identify with the whole spray paint art thing, and I think young people in general like it. The part that stands out to me in the layout most is either the actual 'USI ART CLUB' spray art, which looks very realistic, or the corn booth, which sort of steals the attention away slightly, but I personally can't think of a better way to present it, and I'm sure he meant to draw attention to it anyway.

The only real issues I see are three; number one is some of the header artwork blens maybe to much into the background (makes the spray paint look more like water based paoint) and I think the top-most paragraph should be in bold so it stands away from the yellow background more. The final thing that bugs me a little is that it is aligned left, I feel like it should be centered, but I since I sit next to Ethan I know why it isn't centered (due to the number of text boxes it was set up differently). Other than those three minor points I think the layout works rather well.
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http://taz.willyworld.org/

The look of this one really strikes me because I really enjoy comic book looking art, I think the style is very bold and demands attention, which is great for this assignment. I like the little details like the pencils and brushes in the left side and the info bar on the lower right that says the time of the meetings.

The thing that I feel like should be changed, though, is the text bubble text. The idea is great and the use of a comic sans serif really looks legit as far as comic books go, but the text could be edited a bit for more consistency--random words are capitolized, and some of the wording doesn't work for me exactly (meating, for instance). I definitely get where he was going with it but I think it doesn't work quite right. That may just be a personal opinion. Other than that I like it pretty well, it is one of my favorites in the class due to the style and the colors stick out in my brain.

Posted Up! Ch-ch-ch-ch-check-it-out.

http://kleisman.willyworld.org/

Wha-wha-wha-what's it all about.

Beastie Boys.

Post-Crit Update

Spent part of the day updating and morphing my mess into something slightly more interesting to look at but it's still pretty busy and photoshop keeps crashing for some unknown weird reason today and throwing an error i've never seen before...oh well there's always tomorrow. The newer design has a tad more of the spray paint look to it and the info portion is horizontal and central instead of thrown to the right side. I may post a pic up when I get to it. Maybe not. Maybe I'll go have another slice of pizza and pass out on the floor due to exhaustion and eating too much pizza. Maybe not.

Creative Choices

My project uses home-brewed imagery; graffiti type art on an old crusty wall, this sort of cheap art style is what I think of when I think of college art for some reason. I like the idea of people expressing themselves just anywhere using whatever they have, and not using the expensive brushes and the expensive paints with the expensive canvas. I also think the art style is gritty, and hopefully a collection of college art students have that gritty, young, ambitiousness style.
I created it by drawing figures in an animated style and placing them on an old wall, then using effects to create spray paint. I also used ornate pattern artwork within it in certain places to give a more modern feel and style. The design is supposed to convey youth, essentially.

Just started on planning the website...I'm using a lot of graffiti type art cause I think its appropriate for college students who have no money doing art. Plus it looks cool and I like it. Bananas.

Intoduction to Introduction

I'm signed up on twitter now (unfortunately) and I have this blog (unfortunately) so it shall be updated when updates are needed. Two things I said I would never do, but as long as I don't get too far off topic it won't be an issue in the least. By the way, I'm sergeant Reece, TechCom, DN38416, I was assigned to protect you.

If you didn't understand that then you fail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Jo8QoOTQ4&feature=related