Week 14A

Today, Professor Pannafino assigned a 30 minute exercise to design a logo for the English Dept of Millersville University.

The rest of the class was spent working on Klee's website.
I am still tweeking things, and trying to figure out how to apply the layout I designed. In the meantime, this is what I have:

desired layout

Week 13B Out of Class Work

I organized the web regions better, but I am still working on the classes and divisions.

Week 13B

I kept on working on Klee's website, and met with prof. Pannafino for a short 1-on-1. My design is clear, no bells and whistles. Prof. Pannafino gave me tips on how to organize my space. I feel I have a better understanding of how to proceed.

My design so far. It is not near close what I want it to be.

Prof. Pannafino's suggestions on how to organize regions

Week 13A Out of Class Work

Still figuring out how to make Paul Klee's website. I managed to create some classes in CSS, and write part of the content in HTML

Week 13A

In class, prof. Pannafino prompted the students to work in groups to execute an exercise. The idea was to write in html and instruction to change an image for another when the cursor or mouse hover on it.
It took us a while to research consistent information on the web. There were several approaches but we were unsure on how to link the images, but we succeeded at last.
Prof. Pannafino demonstrated how to create a link within the text.

Week 12B Out of Class Work

For the upcoming website design of artist Paul Klee. I created the image for the header of the page.

This may still have a few changes. I continue to research how to present the elements in HTML and CSS.

Interactive Design Conference

The conference held on McComsey Hall, Millersville University on November 16th, presented four professionals of different disciplines and backgrounds, who work the field of design.

Justin Kunkel, director of strategy of ANDCULTURE, a design agency based in Harrisburg, PA had a lot to say. He defined himself as an user experience designer, not a graphic artist. Kunkel started out as an architecture student, but quickly shifted to English and Philosophy. For him, the most important aspects of his job are his ability to solve problems and his communication skills. His advice to the attendees:

• Recognize design as a PROCESS
• Think Holistically
• Learn Consciously and APPLY constantly
• EMPHATHIZE always
• DEVOUR information
• RESEARCH design

The next presenter, Robert Deraco ( prefers to be called Bobby), a self-made professional, owner of SYNAPSE, agency located in Lancaster, PA, had seven lesson for the audience:

1. Never stop learning
2. Data sells ideas
3. If you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur
4. It costs $200 to turn a bolt
5. Think Code, but speak at level
6. Your mom is the user
7. Chaos is profitable

Joshua Buckwalter, Creative director at INOVAT, and president of AIGA Central PA. He is also a musician and has a band, so many of his early efforts were designing the artwork for the CDs and promos. Also, talked about learning from one's mistakes. He emphasized the importance to start somewhere, but to be smart and move on quickly. Buckwalter explained his personal experience at Clipper Magazine, and later  redesigning and rebranding for The Mailbox, a site of resources for teachers.

The last presenter, Aaron Chu, a web engineer, Millersville University alum, and currenty a front-end developer for Huge Inc, a New York based agency. Chu, originally from Hong Kong, was exposed early on to Japanese animation. Sailor Moon had quite an impact during his childhood, and prompted him to research further the symbolism present in the series. His studies opened new worlds of knowledge to him; from Buddhism to Roman mythology. He has special interest in sculpture and contemporary art.
Chu advised the  audience to be confident, and pay attention to details.

Week 12B

Prof. Pannafino explained several steps to distribute and divide the space using html and css. He also explained how to use google fonts and include them in the webpage we are designing.Now I have a better understanding about how to indicate a wrapper and float boxes on the page.

Google Fonts

my sketch so far

Week 12A Out of Class Work

Work on Sketch in color

Week 12A

Evaluated several websites to get ideas on how each student will develop their websites

www.bestwebgallery.com showcases websites considered successful

Use X-Ray Googles app to examine how the elements are distributed. Also sketched ideas to create a layout later

Week 11B Out of Class Work

For the structure of an HTML document, one must first indicate what type of document it is going to be, so the browser knows what’s going on. This is a practice that came with HTML5, write  <!DOCTYPE HTML>

Typical elements in HTML are:

<html>

<head>

<title>

</title>

</head>

<body>

<p>

</p>

</body>

</html>

There are also a series of elements that have become obsolete, like frame, plaintext, center, blink, space,... Now these elements or attributes are accomplished in CSS.

HTML handles whitespace in a particular way. One can put many lines in between the written information, and when it’s seen in the browser, it’s like no lines were there, so in order to show space one has to tag it as pre instead of p, which stands for Pre-Formatted Text.

These are guidelines for writing HTML:

• Focus on writing clean, efficient code
• Structure the HTML so that it ads meaning to the content
• Don’t focus on styling when initially structuring code
• Well-structure code is much easier to style

             Source: Lynda.com

CSS, Cascading Style Sheet, is a language created to control the appearance of pages of HTML. One could say they work together,  and it determines how items are going to be displayed. CSS contains formatting rules that will govern how elements are displayed.

Week 11B

Prof Pannafino sent instructions to watch 20 videos regarding HTML and CSS at Lynda.com.

As of 10:01 EST, this is what I watched so far

CSS videos, I'll need to watch again, and probably watch the whole course section for it to be clearer.

What I watched on CSS. 11:05 EST

Week 11A Out of Class Work

Paul Klee Moodboard:
Later in life, Paul Klee's works had strong black linework, and it looked like children's art. His preferred medium was watercolor, and sometimes he tinkered with pastels.
I am drawing inspiration from colorful children's art. I want it to be an explosion of color.
Also, use a grid, like many of Klee's paintings, where he separated colors in blocks.
My chosen web-friendly typography is Trebuchet MS.

Week 11A

Today we have to work on a new CSS-101class exercise. Prof Jeri Robinson is subbing for Prof. Pannafino.
I made many changes to "My First Web Page." I added text to the HTML portion of it in order to apply several of the instructions of the CCS-part2.pdf. I also decided to change the background color of the body and titles,  and reduced the letter and word spacing from 0.1em to 0.3em, respectively. I believe that the readability improved.

For the link, now when the user hovers with the pointer, the background changes to yellow. Also added a red line margin to the paragraphs.

Then I added new changes to the font, padding, border, and margin.
This is what it looks like:

I had difficulties applying an image for background. I need further instruction on how to achieve that.

Week 10B Out of Class Work

Finished  the ccs exercise started during class. This is the screen shot:

I chose Paul Klee, as the artist for the last project.

Paul Klee was German-Swiss artist born near Bern, Switzerland on 1879. His father was a musician and a music teacher, so it is no surprise that his initial art inclination would be towards music. Klee played the violin from an early age and was quite talented, but his interest in visual arts grew and in 1898, he moved to Munich to study drawing. Right after school, Klee became acquainted with the works of contemporary artists in Germany and was very interested in the innovative painting styles. For a while he had to earn a living by making political drawings, but because money was scarce, he made ends meet by playing the violin.

Klee married a Swiss girl named Lily after a four-year engagement. They lived in Munich, where Lily gave piano lessons, and Klee stayed home taking care of the cooking and care of their son, Felix. He travelled often to Switzerland, and produced a great number of sketches and drawings.

In 1911, Klee became friends with “The Blue Rider,” German Expressionism group members. Franz Marc, Arthur Macke, and Wassily Kandinsky. Klee and Kandinsky established a friendship that lasted all their lives. Klee was greatly influenced by the Symbolist and Cubist movements, and became more enthusiastic with his own work by exploring different approaches and making an emphasis on color.

After World War I started in 1914, “The Blue Rider” broke up, with the great misfortune of Franz and Macke deaths. Later, the German government decided that artists were exempt from combat and should be used in other activities, but this instruction came late for many of them.

Source:
Forty Sandra "Paul Klee"Taj Books International, 2013. Kindle edition.

Some of Klee's works: