Week One
Prompt: What do you hope to achieve in this class by the end of the term? Are there special projects or technologies you’d like to see covered by the end of the term? Is there a site (or two) that gives you butterflies in your stomach? What is it?
Response: I hope to learn useful code in a way that helps me commit it to memory. I'd like to be able to use it to personalize my design website in a way that is more reflective of my work as an artist and designer.
I'd be really interested to learn about adding basic animation to a website, like ones that are activated by scroll or touch.
I don't spend much time looking at many websites, so I can't say there are any I've seen that are particularly exciting to me. However, I hope that changes by the end of the term.
Inspiring site of the week: Gorillaz
(It's even cooler on mobile in my opinion)
Week Two
Prompt: What are you planning to do for project 1? What content do you plan to show? How will you make each page unique while maintaining a cohesive design across the project? How will your color palette, imagery, and typography choice complement your subject matter?
Response: For project 1 I'm doing a website on hidden role tabletop games. I want to show 4 of the most popular games: Werewolf, Spyfall, BANG! and Secret Hitler. I want to give each page its own layout with headers that thematically fit the game, but have some illustrative elements that are consistent. I want my typography to be easy to read and use color to emphasize the mystery and fun of the games.
Inspiring site of the week: IKEA (I'm redecorating)
Week Three
Prompt: This weeks journal prompt, I want you to clearly imagine one user who'll love to use your Project 1 website. This user could be you, it could be someone similar to you, it could be someone completely opposite from you, it could even be a non-human animal or an alien or an amoeba. You get to choose. Really imagine what they are like in their mind. What do they spend their time on? what are their hobbies, clothes, music, favorite foods, books, tv. what's their personality like. Once you've imagined this person. write about them. just a paragraph, three to five sentences. try to have fun with it.
Response: I imagine the person who would like my website is someone who gets really into tabletop games and especially loves playing them with close friends. They are an adult, considering the concepts and gameplay of most of the games on my site. They also spend time watching gaming content on YouTube, both tabletop games and video games. They Probably also like Dungeons and Dragons.
Inspiring site of the week: Twitch
Week Four
Prompt: Make a list of 5 things to keep you going when you feel resistance or discomfort.
Response:
- Complete simple tasks
- Take notes
- Ask small questions
- Interact with peers with honesty
- Take a deep breath and reset my brain
Inspiring site of the week: Hacker Typer
Week Five
Prompt: Response to Umoju Miller talk .
Response:
Inspiring site of the week: Incredibox
Week Six
Prompt: What did you choose the business/cause that you chose? Why do you think your redesign will be better? What area/content will you focus on in your redesign? Look at two other similar websites. What stands out about those sites? what bothers you abut them? How will you improve things in your own design.
Response: I chose my favorite comic book store, Cosmic Monkey. I think my redesign will be better because their current website is a bit crowded and the layout isn't engaging. I'm going to focus on layout and organization. For similar websites, I took a look at Excalibur Comics and Books With Pictures. Excalibur's website is great. It has minimal content and is easy to look at. However, everything lives on one main page. Books With Pictures is also minimal, but not in a fun way. There's no engaging design to it and everything is uneven. To make mine better, I'll make the main page easier to scroll through and cut down on the amount of subpages.
Inspiring site of the week: Cosmic Monkey Comics
Week Seven
Prompt: No prompt this week.
Response:
Inspiring site of the week: Patatap
Week Eight
Prompt: Read this article on mobile first design and share your thoughts on mobile first vs desktop first.
Response: I hadn't considered just how many advantages there are to mobile-first web design! I thought it was only because cell phone usage is more common than desktop. The fact that it increases productivity by restricting the designer from interaction capabilities makes so much sense. Now that I think about it, designing Project 2 mobile-first made it a lot easier and quicker than the time and energy I spent on Project 1 and it still looks better. Making it responsive for desktop is a lot less daunting now that I have all the content already in there.
Inspiring site of the week: UnDraw
Week Nine
Prompt: This one's about "why." Read this article (try to pretend it's not a cheezy article about business success). Spend some time thinking about why you are pursuing a career in design. Really dig down, do the 7 "whys" tool in the article.
Response: I am pursuing a career in design because I have always wanted to do some sort of visual expression for a living. I have an easier time expressing things and solving things visually than I do verbally. I chose design because there are a lot of industries for it, and it involves creative problem solving which is fulfilling and satisfying for me. Solving problems is satisfying for me because it gives me a sense of accomplishment, like I've made something better or easier. Feeling accomplished, even for something small, helps me sleep at night and makes me feel more energized and self-confident. Being able to do that as a career will give me the motivation to pursue the other things I enjoy, it'll help me to not feel guilty for taking breaks, and hopefully it'll improve my social skills since I'll be working with people.
Inspiring site of the week: Music Map
Week Ten
Prompt: Before the final, please write at least a few paragraphs on your design process and reasoning for the design decisions you made on your project.
Response: