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!