Web Design

Yay! I have finally finished all of my projects. I can now enjoy the holidays. Here are the links to my projects.

Blog Theme: http://www.vasilidesign.blogspot.com/
Website: http://vasiliskountos.webs.com/

Here are all the requirements for my website and where they are located:
* One Link to page Fragment- On the home page.
* 6 external links- Are the 6 sponsors down the bottom of each page.
* One file download- One the home page in the video sub-page.
* Search field input: On the home page.
* One Image- On the artist’s page.
* Google map- On the homepage in the map sub-page.
* YouTube clip- On the homepage in the video sub-page.

The website only works in Firefox, although throughout the holidays I intend to get it work on internet explorer.

Week 13

This week is a mad rush for me to try and get all my assignments done. I have managed to fix up all the little problems I had with my website and now getting ready to begin my blog theme. I'm actually looking forward to this because a lot of ideas are going through my head in how I can make it my own. This weeks lecture is focused on custom blog themes. It has two strategies that can be used editing and existing theme or create one from scratch. Im hoping that editing an existing blog theme works out well because the main concept is done, all thats left is to recreate the way it looks. This will probably end up being harder, knowing my luck, but i'll continue believing it isn't. Throughout the lecture I like the step by step process, it makes sure I don't get stuck.

Week 12

I remember learning a bit about web 2.0 in Internet Media and Communications and networked media. I didn’t realise how many sites are actually using web 2.0. Surprisingly I knew quite a few of the sites. I have now started to found out that the web 2.0 sites actually have more information on them and less pictures. To sign up to these sites is really easy, usually a 3 step process. The lecture was very visual which was, good because it showed you exactly what web 2.0 sites are and how they are created. I actually didn't realise twitter was a web 2.0 site so that was new to me.

My website is coming along well, slowly getting there finally. Hopefully the skills about HTML and CSS will help me a lot when it comes to creating a blog theme, im actually more excited to begin that as i get to personalise my own theme to the blog, can't wait.

Week 11

This week was working on the website. I was getting stuck with the HTML of the text. I researched it on google and got a few ideas, but the text book has different examples and using bits of both of them I was able to HTML all my text and ready to create the CSS.

Week 10

This week was getting all the ideas that I had rushing through my head and somehow put them all together. I worked out what pages I wanted my website to have and I also found all the pictures I wanted to use. I thought of making the pictures look like a polaroid picture, this is a different way to display them rather than just having them as they are.

Week 8 and 9

These weeks went so quick! I must say I did get some homework done, I worked out how i wanted my website to be displayed, so I could begin putting it all together. I also had time to type up all the lectures that I had written in my book, so not looking forward to going back to uni, been awesome staying home and working on assignments.

Week 7- The Presentation Layer

This week's lecture was about The Presentation Layer. The lecture began with a overall summary of what we have learnt so far. Now it was time to bring each individual thing that we learnt and put it all together. This lecture was organised good because it was a step by step process of how to put everything together. This will help me when I get stuck with my website. I can look back and see what I forgot to add. It showed me how to create tabs on the webpage and display images where I want them.

Week 6- Web Publishing

This week's lecture was about Web Publishing. Before the Internet it was referred to books and newspapers. Now since the Internet publishing has expand to many digital devices such as electronic books, resources, music, videos, blogs and many other digital devices. Web publishing is accessed through the web browser, if you want to publish the files to the web you must have a web host and a domain name (url). Throughout the tutorial this week, we were playing around with different sites and web publishing. We even got to create our own practice webpage and add information from different sources.

Week 5- Information Architecture

This week’s lecture was about Information Architecture. In 1976 the term Information Architecture was created by Richard Saul Wurmans. This focuses on the structure and planning of your website. To make the structure of your website easier to understand you should follow Richard Saul Wurmans organising of content called LATCH:
L. Location
A. Alphabet
T. Time
C. Category
H. Hierarchy

Architecture can be described by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville in four ways.

1. An emerging discipline and community practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
2. The combination of organization, labeling, and navigation schemes within an information system.
3. The structural design of an information space to facilitate task completion and intuitive access to content.
4. The art and science of structuring and classifying websites and intranets to help people find and manage information.

Applying these to your own website would make it easier for the user to comprehend what is going on.

Week 4- Why Code Counts

This week’s lecture was focused on codes and why it's used to create websites. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the two main codes used to create a webpage. These two codes do not mean programming. Html focuses on the content of the webpage while Css focuses on how you want the content to look. Throughout this lecture many visuals were used which made it easier to establish the difference between them. In the tutorial we got to play around with Html and Css. This will now make it easier to create the website I desire and also in the future.

Week 2- Desinging for the Web

This week’s lecture was about designing web sites for the internet. This included making use of design conventions that users use to when viewing different websites. Some design conventions are:
* Sites scrolling down- when a site scrolls horizontal it confuses and annoys the user.
* The logo is usually the home link tool.

Some aspects you need to keep in mind when designing a website are:
* Content
* Brower Compatibility
* Monitor Design and Size
* Colour
* Internet Speed- Make sure you don't keep your users waiting to upload you webpage. Keep the images and content at a small file size so they don't take ages to load.

In class we broke down these main aspects of web design, to make sure when it came to creating our website we don't make minor errors that could have been easily avoided.

Week 1- Intro

This week’s lecture was a introduction to Web Design and what the course will involve. We had to search through different music festival sites, and begin to decide which one we were going to select and recreate. We also had to create student blog accounts, I have done this before in previous classes. This is a fun and a easy way to keep to update with your work. I have been searching through different music festivals sites, I actually didn't realise there are so many. I have begun to narrow it down and will chose one soon. This unit will challenge me as I have never created a website before, although will hopefully help me create many more in the future.

Design Reference

Layout- All the websites I have chosen have a similar characteristics. There is a logo of the website on the (top left corner or in the center of the site making the focal point ). The sites information is all underneath the logo followed by pictures on either side of artist and bands that will be featured on festival. There is a great use of colour making it eye catching for the target market.

Navigation- In the sites I have chosen there is information underneath the header. Around the information there are images of bands that will be featured in the festival and what date they will be playing. Other sites have included online sign in to purchase tickets.

Logo- All the sites have logos. They are located on the middle of the site and some on the Top left hand side of the site and they are all appealing to their target audiences.

Content- The sites all contain vitual information, such as dates, bands being played and what days, ticket purchasing and merchandise.

Motion Graphics- Most of these sites contain motion graphics. This is excellent feature to add to a site as it gives the audience someting to capture their attention or view.

Colours and Fronts- The choice of colours and fronts is vitual, because if you choose the wrong colour it could make it difficult to read. These sites all contain a excellent choice of colour and is easy to read their content.

Simplicity- Most of these sites are fairly simple to use. This is vitual, because if it's too difficult to use the user will get lost. When designing a website this is a important aspect to focus on.

Web Design

Hey this isn't my first blog, since I have started Uni I have created many of these. I'm excited to begin learning about web design because when I finish I hope to create and use my own web site.