Linda Arbuckle on sun 12 feb 06
I confess that I've not been reading Clayart much of late, so pardon if
this is a repeat of someone's information. This term grads are working
on developing personal web sites as a professional practices learning
experience. Web sites present your work in color, relatively cheap,
easily kept current, and a great way to show what you do to the world.
Most of the students will owe money after school and will not be hiring
a web designer any time soon, but should have a site. They have a design
eye, but do not know graphic design conventions OR computer info.
We have found "The Non-Designer's Web Book, 3rd ed" by Robin Williams
and John Tollett (Peachpit Press) INVALUABLE as a design and technical
resource. Very approachable reading, very good info. We are using
Dreamweaver to construct our sites. I hear the free Mozilla composer is
a good tool as well. Dreamweaver has become an industry standard for
clean web coding in the same way Photoshop is for photo manipulation.
Neither are cheap, and there are alternatives. I've read that Google's
Picasa image program is a good free resource. We went for the standards,
as that is what people will most likely encounter if they're working
someplace. Dreamweaver very basic book: "Creating a Web Page in
Dreamweaver" by Nolan Hester (Peachpit Press). Small book on basics. I
also like "Teach Yourself Visually Dreamweaver MX 2004" , Janine Warner
and Susannah Gardner, Wiley Publishing. A basic Photoshop book from the
same places would be helpful.
Like clay, working in community makes things go faster than alone. We
are all learning together, and sharing the tips we come up with. So, I
suggest you find a buddy or a group to work with. It will make you do it
on a calendar, and give you problem-solving resources.
Peachpit press has free e-newsletters on things like Photoshop, web
design. Sign up at:
http://www.peachpit.com/newsletters/index.asp?st=41859
They also offer chapters and articles on various digital things of
interest (e.g. an article on cropping that tells you how to use the crop
tool to add more canvas) :
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/index.asp
Macromedia tutorials and info:
http://www.cbtcafe.com/dreamweaver/basics.htm
http://www.webreference.com/
I do think after reading Non-Designer's Web Book that visual arts people
should be able to make a basic web site that doesn't embarrass
themselves. After hammering on the students to think about the tone they
wanted in their web site, derived from what they think is important in
their work (e.g. restraint, in-your-face, elegance, playfulness,
gesture, et al.), I have tried to do the same. Site is not quite
complete (is it ever?), but much better than the old one hosted on the
university's Plaza server. I hope it keeps improving. I confess that I
am a closet geek-wanna-be, and find it exciting to be able to create
this way, as well as in clay. If it's not your pleasure, find someone to
trade with or hire the work out. If you have an itch but want advice,
the books above really help.
Linda Arbuckle
University of Florida Ceramics
http://lindaarbuckle.com
Connie Christensen on sun 12 feb 06
On Feb 12, 2006, at 1:17 PM, Linda Arbuckle wrote:
>
> We have found "The Non-Designer's Web Book, 3rd ed" by Robin Williams
> and John Tollett (Peachpit Press) INVALUABLE as a design and
> technical
> resource. ..... Dreamweaver very basic book: "Creating a Web Page in
> Dreamweaver" by Nolan Hester (Peachpit Press). Small book on basics. I
> also like "Teach Yourself Visually Dreamweaver MX 2004" , Janine
> Warner
> and Susannah Gardner, Wiley Publishing.
Another book I found very useful with a lot of good information, also
by Robin Williams is "Web Design Workshop." It has a glossary in
front that gives visual definitions of a lot of terms used in the
book. I just used Dreamweaver and Fireworks to redesign my website
and the book "How to Use Dreamweaver MX & Fireworks MX" by Lon Coley
has a lot of step by step visuals that help you get started pretty
fast. I have a couple of other books, but these two were the most
helpful.
If you've used layout software such as QuarkXpress or InDesign, the
best thing I could tell you is not to compare web design with these
graphic design layout programs. There are more limitations in web
design, especially when working with text.
Connie Christensen
Arvada, CO
www.conniechristensen.com
Lee Love on mon 13 feb 06
On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:17:20 -0500, Linda Arbuckle
wrote:
> I've read that Google's
>Picasa image program is a good free resource. We went for the standards,
>as that is what people will most likely encounter if they're working
>someplace.
Linda,
Picasa is really handy and it will do most simple editing of
images that are necessary for the web. Since you really don't want to
alter the image, just crop, focus, straighten and maybe correct
exposure, it works pretty good.
It will also create simple album webpages. And/or allow you
to quickly send your images to Blogger. Actually, a photo weblog is
one of the most painless ways to put up current images. Not only that,
Google stores even large images that you can point other webpages too,
and save server space elsewhere.
Get Picasa:
http://picasa.google.com/
Blogger:
http://www.blogger.com
--
Lee Love
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
http://ikiru.blogspot.com/ Zen and Craft
"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is
rounded with a sleep."
--PROSPERO Tempest Shakespeare
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