Angel's Blog

Content Strategy

gironangel — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:53:08 +0000

First of all content is a very tricky and complicated thing when you think of it, but this article gave me a more understanding on how important content is and how much attention I should put on it. Something I didnt realize is that as a web designer all I do is build content for websites, witch at first to me was a slap on the face for not realizing that thats what I do. As far as content goes its a very important part of the site, its what allows the user to understand whats going on and were to go on the site.

Content strategy plans for the creating, publication, and governance in useful and usable content. Also defining not only what content is going in but why its their in the first place. Content strategy keeps everything content wise to its best of its abilities, it keeps everything as detailed as it needs to be in order to have good content on the page.

Three topics

gironangel — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:54:12 +0000

My first topic that I thought of was for Industrial Hemp, basically a variety type of Cannabis sativa. Mainly used for their seeds and fiber. As a form of cannabis industrial hemp is something you cannot get high off of, the average THC count on industrial hemp is less than 1%. Hemp can be used to make clothing, paper, shoes, it can even be used to make diesel fuel. The reason I thought of this topic is just because we kill of so many thousands of trees a year and that’s something that cleans our air and what not. With industrial hemp being grown we could stop that, in time having more trees and cleaner air, and since it can be made into fuel what you use is being cleaned by the trees and hemp plants your growing so its an ongoing cycle. Some people even believe that this could be a solution to the green house effect.

My second topic is a site for a music program were kids/adults can come together and learn how to play an instrument. I would like to have it to were we would meet up two or three times a week, so it would be locally, but would also like to have online videos so those that aren’t local can still have about the same experience. This to me is a way kids can have a hobby something to keep them away from the street and from what isn’t good. For adults it could be a get away from their daily lives, time were they can enjoy something they love and helps them relax. I would also like to have volunteer like music teachers to do video tutorials and or help and teach whenever we get together during the week.

Heart Imagination

gironangel — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:16:43 +0000

Well when this assignment was brought to us to thing of something that we can do to make a change in the world it closed my mind up. It was hard to think of anything that me one person could do to change something as big as this world. We all have something to offer and some find this out sooner than others, but it took me a bit to realize what I could do. The first things I thought of was helping the kids and people in 3rd world countries. Then I realized that their not the only people that need help. I might sound selfish but even people with money need help at times. As I say one day just thinking about what I could do I stumbled upon a thought and a reality that art in schools world wide are being cut and or taken from out youth. So then I thought to myself what could I do to change that. I decided to make a site that would fund money for schools to keep the art programs in and let our youth and children be free to express who they are. Not only will we fund schools but 3rd world countries with kids that don’t have the privilege to own art supplies let alone markers. So with what is funded we will also be helping the 3rd world countries with school supplies and art supplies. This organization will be called Heart Imagination Art Nation…

Frameworks for Designers

gironangel — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:06:57 +0000

As I read I just get the understanding that frameworks are just stylesheets that have information that will be used more than once on your site. Of course your going to have pages that are similar and thats when your frameworks come in place, so you wont have to be writing the same code over and over again. Jeff Croft staited that frameworks are ” a set of tools, libraries, conventions, and best practices that attempt to abstract routine tasks into generic modules that can be reused.” It was also said that the framework is best taken advantage of when the site is bigger than when smaller, witch makes sense since on a longer and bigger site you will have to use alot of the same code throughout the website. Frameworks can also consist of many style sheets as listed:

reset.css
type.css
grid.css
widgets.css
base.css

As I go and read other articles they basically all say the same thing and seems like they have copied exactly what Jeff Croft had to say or wrote. When it comes to a subject like this I can see how it would be hard to really say anything thats diffirent when this subject is pretty much so straight forward. To me this was a subject that took me a bit to really get a grasp on and still lingering a bit on it, but then again its something new but im positive that when I start using it more it will become very easy to use.

http://www.inspiredbuddy.com/css/css-frameworks-for-designers/

http://www.webdotdev.com/nvd/content/view/1136/

Responsive Web Design

gironangel — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:19:41 +0000

As I read through the article by Ethan Marcotte I understood that as web designers we have the obligation to make sites for different types of devices. As much as technology is advancing and new things come out it makes you think on how we will be able to make everything possible. It kind of makes it seem like we are hitting a barrier that we need to surpass in order to make things better. While reading other articles they all say the same thing and that’s that you need three things to have a responsive website. It has a flexible grid, flexible images and media queries. Having a flexible grid doesn’t mean you have to be enclosed to a handful of “proper grids”, you can go all out and put however many columns or rows you want, but being rational of course. Then come the flexible images were you have to decide how much or many images you want on your site and those images have to be flexible enough to flow and be edited with the html used. Media queries allow you to have multiple layouts using the same html documents by selecting stylesheets based on the user agents feature. I believe this is something critical to learn when learning about the web and how to make websites. Without these steps its nearly impossible to have a responsive web site.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

Progressive Enhancment (PE)

gironangel — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:14:13 +0000

While reading a few articles on this subject I didn’t realize how often I have used it and how long its been in front of my face. Progressive enhancement is by far the best type of progression in the web industry that has been used yet. Basically progressive enhancement is building a web site but allowing all types of format to be able to use it. Companies want to be able to have their customers retrieve their information by any means necessary, and now in days people are using all sorts of things to get information. Whether it be from an Ipod, Ipad, Mobil device, and or any other device and well as web designers we have to make it possible for everyone to get a hold of all this information yet making it compatible with the device that the user is using. While reading an article they had basically a three step latter per-say that is used when doing so. Your first start of with the HTML portion for devices that are only able to withstand that. Then comes the CSS portion that more advanced devices would be able to obtain and show on their screens. Finally comes the JavaScript portions that people with the proper tools will be able to obtain. Until now I didn’t know that what I was learning in class was progressive enhancement that I will soon use in the work force once I graduate or even before that day comes.

When it comes to graceful degradation or fault-tolerance is basically the older version of PE. If something goes wrong with the HTML in the site or anything it wont just cut it off but it will fall back on a lesser version of the site but sill able to give the user what is needed. From what i’ve read is that graceful degradation works from building a full blown site with CSS and all and working down to devices that may not be capable of sustaining that type of coding, as in PE works from the bottom up. I see now why PE is used now more that graceful degradation because it seems more logical and easier to work from the bottom up instead of working from top to bottom.

Design for the web…

gironangel — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:10:18 +0000

Designing for the web…not only do you have to take in thought how user-friendly you wanna be as well as how your customer wants it to be. You have to take into concentration how you want your site to look after reading and understand what your designing for. The website should be appealing to the eye and shouldn’t be hard to go through and find things that are necessary. You cant please everyone but you have to try to do your best to please the most you can, especially your customer as well as your users. A site can have a strong visual but if its not user friendly then it defeats the whole purpose of the site. A good thing to do is separate your information from most important to least important. This can also be done by bolding text or color coding. Also be careful with your color scheme, the color chosen should go with the product as well as it shouldn’t take away from what your trying to say to the public.

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-design/web-2-0-design-style-guide/

http://www.wpdfd.com/

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Designers…

gironangel — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:45:29 +0000

These two designers have gotten together and made a site that not only shows their work but allows a start up designer like me to get more of an idea of what ill be doing. They are very elegant designers but know how to go on by what the user and customers want. The site is very user friendly and is not difficult to know were you are. They allow the user to navigate through different types of designs they have made throughout the years,

Donald Peterson, Peterson Consultants (Newark1.com)

This website is dedicated to BBQ cooks that compete, this web site has a very unique layout. There layout consist of a not so wide strip down the middle witch to me is very interesting and good. They also have some side buttons for Twitter, RSS feeds, Search and other things, but what concerned me about it was that its a bit off to the side and you kind of have to look for it a bit. Other than that the website shows a great view of organization and color scheme was very well.

Ismael Burciaga (bbqwar.com)

This site is a very interesting site, I love the colors on it, its very vibrant but at the same time it doesnt bother you because the contrast of the dark color allows it to be gentle to the eyes. I really enjoy the scroll down portfolio allowing the user to brows and look and what they want, also showing a preview of the actual design. The contact feature on the other hand doesn’t really give contact information, instead you have to contact the owner in order to receive a number or another sort of information.

Kieran Gabriel (kierangabriel.com)

History of the Internet…

gironangel — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:54:16 +0000

The internet also known as the world wide web, truly is something magnificent. Its crazy how something has progressed so fast in just only about two decades. Its what gives us alot of what we want now in days, mostly everything now is being powered by the intellects of the internet. We went from being able to send small portions of information to one another to a cyber world were the information is endless, and new things are being made and added to it everyday. Its weird to look back and remember when netscape was the browser to have, and how things worked back in the day. We didnt have all these social network or websites to go to. We were very limited but with the ambition of the people we were able to be were we are now…

E-Portfolios……

gironangel — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:23:25 +0000

Definitions of eportfolios vary, but generally include the notion of a digital resource demonstrating growth, allowing for flexible expression, and permitting access to varied interested parties (parents, potential employers, fellow learners, and instructors). To me its just a place to put your digital work in one place, were you can go and check and arrange your work. Just sounds like a regular art or work portfolio were you store your work that your are going to show or have shown before. You can also learn by e-portfolios, by reading or seeing others peoples work you can get more of an idea on your work. For example lets say you want a tattoo and you don’t know what tattoo artist you want, you can look at their portfolio online and choose witch one you like best. Their are three types of e-portfolios:

developmental (working)- its were someone puts their past,present, and future work in one place and may be directly tied to learner outcomes.

reflective (learning)-its a personal reflection on the content and what it means to the owner.

representational (showcase)-Shows the owners achievements in particular works and or development goals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_portfolio

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/eportfolios.htm

http://www.danwilton.com/eportfolios/