Let's talk about Web Design

So, I'm going to go in a slightly different direction with this last blog post.  I'm all about the web.  I watch hardly any TV, I don't read any magazines and do they still make newspapers?

So many of the things about design can apply to the web.  Web design is really important.  Think about a website that you think is really poorly done.  Do you ever go back?  Unless you have to, you probably don't.  In one of my blog posts here, I said that I agreed with the book that paper is sexy.  I'll go even farther - web design can be just as sexy.

Going back to the beginning of the book, and the basics, chapter one states, "Good graphic design does four things: It captures attention, controls the eye's movement across the page or screen, conveys information and evokes emotion."  Web design does all this.  If a website doesn't capture attention, you don't go any further.  If it doesn't flow well, it's just disorganized.  And if you aren't drawn to something about it, are you going to stay there?  A website that I check frequently is called The Mighty.  It's a website that encourages patients and families with disabilities and disease.  I think this website is set up really well.  It captured my attention just with the title The Mighty.  What a cool title for this website!  There's a search function, and a way to look up A-Z conditions.  Then there is the menu bar with different types of sorting.  The one criticism of the site heading is that I wish the Follow Us tags (Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest) were at the top rather than at the bottom of the page.

Next you see the featured story, and then two columns scrolling down with the other stories on the site - and there are a ton of them.  It's easy on the eyes, and what I've found is that I just want to read a couple of stories and then do something else.  However, because the titles of the stories and the pictures completely draw me in, next thing I know hours have passed.  If anything on that page would have been different, I may not have stayed.  But it flows well, gives a lot of info, captures your attention and really, really draws your emotions out.

Surprisingly, one of the worst websites, in my opinion, is CNN.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I hate how this website is set up.  It is SO busy.  There is so much information that you are bombarded with.  Next time there's a disaster, go to CNN.  The front headline will be in about 6 million point font.  It looks like it's going to come off the screen and go for your throat.  It's terrible.  There is just so much info.  It's loosely organized, but then you get down the page and they have "Paid Partner Content".  Which for years, I never went past.  But now there are more stories below it.  I'm sorry, it's terrible.  I hated even linking you guys to it.  I hate this screenshot. 

(If you want a really good news site, visit BBC News.  It's not the best setup, but it's so much better than CNN.)

One thing I really had a hard time with in this class was the discussion we had about the two spaces after the period in writing.  I've done a fair amount of writing.  And I just think that things look better with the two spaces.  But, thanks to this class, I'm now seeing rivers of white space.  Thank you.  (If you didn't "hear" the sarcasm, let me assure you it's there.)  So, I think there are some changes in the future.  I've actually noticed it on my own blog.  I have a blog, Sensing an Enemy, where I now see those rivers.  I thought about going back and correcting them, but...  I'll just start going forward with one space.  If I remember.

And a question to follow this up - any suggestions for layout for my blog?  I've tried to keep it simple and uncluttered.  I think the theme works well.  I use Wordpress as the content management system (CMS).  The only thing I don't really like about it is the size of the font.  I could change it, but I'd have to go into the code, and I hate coding.  Well, maybe not "hate", but I severely dislike it.

And finally, if you guys need it, the website I get copyright free photos from is StockSnap.  (https://stocksnap.io/)

How I've Changed...

Well, in some ways, this class has ruined me.  As in, I see oddball things every time I turn around.  Luckily, I think this is good.  But its been a bit painful.

Early on, I observed that I've got a fair amount of chaos in my life - visually.  Whether it's caused by working full time, being in school part time and maybe just a bit of laziness, I see so much clutter around me.  My desk at work.  My room here at home.  Our kitchen table. It's caused me to see how others might see ME.  Does that make sense?  Meaning, if I'm looking at someone's home, or desk, or whatever, I might think certain things about the person based on what I see.  So what do people think about me because of the things they see around me?

I need to keep better track of Eva's toys...

And that includes physical things, like color, how I arrange my desk or living room, what's on the walls, etc.. But that also includes how I write as well.  If my writing isn't good, what will people assume about me?

Another thing I learned about myself is that I really love vibrant colors.  Especially in nature.  It's funny, I was looking through my phone while I was writing this trying to decide what pictures to use, and it was amazing how many bright colored flower pictures I have. 

I've always thought I preferred the "night" colors, because they're peaceful.  And they are peaceful.  I just don't have the need to surround myself with as many as I used to.  I've noticed how your mood and emotion can dictate color.  If I'm outside, or hiking, I want it to be bright and, not necessarily sunny, but...  bright.  When I'm stressed out, I want peaceful colors, "nighttime" colors.  I took the following pic last fall when I was on Lake Michigan.  It's a bit blurry, but I remember that I was very stressed out at the time and was reflecting on life and praying about it.  I'm glad I still had the shot in my phone!

 It was dusk, and it's a great shot to demonstrate how I felt.  That sounds weird even saying/typing it...  But it's true!  I had a really hard time putting colors to abstract ideas like "dignity", "expensive", etc, but I don't have any problem putting a color to an emotion - which is really abstract.

As with everyone in class, I think that I'm noticing advertising more. But for me, it's more the wording.  Don't get me wrong, I notice the pictures as well (especially Lucky Charms...), but the last month or so, I've noticed wording.  I belong to Dollar Shave Club and they had a pic with the following quote in it.  It was in my monthly delivery.

I thought this was really clever!  Not much to the pic, but it's hilarious!  I also noticed the inside seal for the yogurt I eat.  I don't eat it often because it's expensive, but it's also got a great catch!  The description is great, but the cow saying "G'day" is funny - because it's Australian style yogurt.

I think this class has again, made me pay much more attention to what's around me.  And my OCD has gone a little crazy...

Color!

Well, there were some surprises with my responses to colors.  I think one of the most interesting things about the survey is that I have never thought about some of the items.  Like “inexpensive” and “dignity” and those really abstract items.  And I don’t know why some of those responses popped into my head.  For instance, “dignity”.  Survey results said dark blue.  I had said brown.  But why I said brown, I have NO idea.  That’s what popped into my head when I read it.  But even at the time, I’m thinking, “why brown?”

Some of my answers were just like everyone else.  Pure, expensive, mourning, deity, etc.  But it’s interesting.  There were a couple I was just a touch off on.  I put down dark green for good luck and not regular green.  For high technology, I put dark grey, and the survey said silver.  And then the most surprising was nausea.  I put muted green-yellow, and the survey said muted yellow.  I laughed pretty hard at how close I came!

Then there was my thought process with deity.  I of course, put down white.  And yeah, there’s the angels and the pics of God in a white flowing robe, and all that, but when I thought about it, my initial reaction was white marble.  I love history, and on my own have studied the old cathedrals.  I visited Notre Dame in Paris at one point, and when I was thinking about deity, I thought, “that’s why I’m thinking white!”  I was there on a bright sunny day, and the church was so white against the blue sky.  Here’s one of my pictures.  Churches are so much more tangible than just an idea or a picture.

And then for good tasting, the survey showed Red (tomato) as the favorite.  My choice immediately was green.  I love vegetables, in particular, cucumbers and salads.  

Getting to the printing stage of things, I started thinking about when the therapy dog group I belong to did a new brochure a few years ago.  I was part of the group that decided the technical part of the printing.  One thing that we had to decide on was 1,2 or 4 colors.  So when Angelica was talking about the printing process for these colors, I was somewhat familiar.  (Only to a point, though.  I’m certainly not an expert!)  At the time, we decided to do two printings; one batch in 4 color and one in 1 color.  We made the decision to do this because of the different activities and events we were going to hand them out at.  If we were at a huge event where people just wanted info on the group, we’d put out the 1 color brochures.  If we were at a smaller, dog or healthcare specific event, we’d put out the 4 color ones.  

We also decided on paper at the time.  Chapter 14 of WSINYE has some great information on paper (that I wish I had had when we were making decisions)!  One sentence stood out.  “Paper is sexy.” (p. 239)  And as crazy as that sounds, I agree.  There are SO many different kinds.  For the 4 color printing, we chose a coated paper that shone.  It really made our brochure pop!  And then for the 1 color, we just did a standard uncoated, but we did make it heavier weight to hold up better than just standard copy paper.  If any of you read, you know how the difference in a page or type of paper can determine the quality of the book.

Anyway, this was an interesting exercise.  And again, I wish I had known about all the printing and paper stuff when we did our brochure! 

Commercial Photography

I thought about doing a pic of Lucky Charms for my post, but didn’t want to give myself or anyone nightmares…

I also wasn’t sure where I was going to find photos of advertisements – I get most of my information online, and don’t have cable.  Well, I came up here to Sturgeon Bay this weekend to visit my Dad and his wife, and guess what?  They had some magazines!

 

I looked through a couple of them, but kept coming back to one that was on the back of the Good Housekeeping March edition.  I finally decided that it didn’t matter how many more I looked through, I was going to do my blog about this pic.  First off, I am due for an upgrade to my iPhone 5s, and had just started researching the iPhone 6s.  Primarily because I had been thinking about switching to Samsung.  I am also thinking about waiting for the next version of the iPhone, but that could be a while.  

Photo credit only lists (Evan S.)

 

I use my phone as my camera.  I take quite a few photos – since having a good camera on a phone is so handy!  (Majority of my pics?  Yeah, my dog, Eva…)  The ones I took for my Animoto were taken on my iPhone.  

 

So, about the photo.  First of all, I like the ad campaign.  Its photos taken by users with their iPhones.  They may be staged, but it doesn’t matter; they’re still taken by everyday users.  This one in particular was kind of interesting.  The first thing I noticed was the archery target and arrows.  Since it’s “Shot on iPhone 6s”, I thought this was a great play on the word “Shot”.  I also really love the lighting coming in from the left and the gal is looking over there.  

One thing I noticed is that the rule of thirds is not applied to this photo.  In WSINYE, the authors talk about asymmetrical balance.  “Centered photos are goring.  Asymmetrical balance makes interesting shots, and using the rule of thirds is the quickest way to compose for asymmetry.  Imagine the shot as a 3x3 grid, then position the focal point on one of the resulting four gridlines.” (p. 138)  The subject of this photo is the woman sitting on the chair.  It’s dead center in the photo, and there’s no doubt she is the subject.  But I think it works.  Had she been looking right into the camera, or the lighting been different (soft, not harsh, etc.) it would have been boring.  But I don’t think it is.  I think it’s a good photo!

I’ve heard of the rule of thirds before, and I’ve noticed myself doing some of this.  I don’t usually take a picture with the subject in the center – because I think it’s boring!  I took a bunch of pics last summer of some flowers at the CSA I belong to.  I am allergic to flowers, and so instead of picking them and taking them home, I take pictures.  Here are two of them, one using the rule of thirds, one is centered.  I think both are okay, but the sunflower is better.

So, back to my decision.  Samsung or Apple?  Do any of you have an iPhone 6s or Samsung Galaxy 7?  Post some pics in the comments to show me what they look like…  :)

Video Blog

Video

***I'm not sure what quality the embedded video is.  If you can't play it, there's a link to the video just above. ***

To start out, let me tell you that this was one of the most fun assignments I’ve ever done.  And I didn’t expect it to be.  I had missed last class because I tested positive for influenza – and I hate missing class because if I’m not clear on something, I don’t have a chance to ask.  (I also love all the discussions!)

So I emailed Dawn with some questions I had about Animoto and some questions about the assignment.  She assured me that when I got into Animoto, things would make more sense.  And they did!  Except it took some time to get to the Animoto part.

I started out by trying to figure out what I was going to do my video blog about.  Since there isn’t a lot of time due to class being every Wednesday, I needed to be able to do something on Saturday.  So I decided to get up early and make a trip to Willy Street Co-op.  It’s a fun co-op, and you can get some really unusual things there.  I live further away than I used to, so I don’t go as often.  It was nice to go again!  But it was early.

That morning, I sat down before I left and didn’t really do a “storyboard” (mainly because I can’t draw!), but I did write up a rough outline of how I wanted everything to look, and the order that I wanted it to be in.  Then I filled in what pictures I wanted to take so I wouldn’t miss anything.  Since it was loosely based on how early it was and that coffee was going to be at the beginning and end of it, I wanted to make sure that there were good pics of that aspect.  As for the products – I just wanted to walk around and shoot.  There were a couple of shots I really wanted, and then there were others that just looked right.  Unfortunately, you can only do so much with perspective and different angles when photographing products in a store setting. (couldn't set stuff up)

I walked in and asked if I could take pictures while in the store.  The customer service person called in the manager and said that I could as long as there were no people in the photos.  That was going to make it a bit harder, but I was determined to try.  So, as I went about my shopping, I started snapping photos.  Another roadblock that I hadn’t thought about when I first started was that since I was limited to product photos only, the video could be pretty boring.  Yeah, I could put some fun products in, but picture after picture of products and areas of the co-op was going to be “eh”.  Especially since I had wanted to ask employees if I could take pics of them doing their job.  Except, now I couldn’t.  I decided that I would work it out at home afterwards.

Which is what I did.  I decided to break up the products with “selfies” taken in front of my home.   (I never take selfies!)  After I got home, I realized how sunny it was and that the front of the house was in full sun.  The dog would also love being outside, so why not go out and experiment?  I took a bunch of selfies with different expressions on my face and a couple of me with the dog.  I think the neighbors must have thought I was nuts.  Oh, well.

Using Animoto was surprisingly easy, especially after I uploaded photos.  I was really surprised, and had a lot of fun doing this.  I’ve never done anything like it, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  But I think it turned out well!