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: By the end of this term I hope to become familiar with the basics of coding. I'm very new to html and css, so one main goal is to engrave the basics into my memory. I do remember taking a special studies class back in seventh grade that dove into the topic of coding, but I don't remember one piece of information from that class. Honestly, I already have butterflies!! Just on the first day of class, I was already showing off my 'published' site LOL, so I know along the way there will be plenty of moments where I'll be astonished with the outcome of the codes. I'm excited for all the new programs I'll become familiar with, even though at times there might be headaches that follow along with them.
Inspiring site of the week: milkmakeup.com
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 want to dive into the topic of marijuana. I decided on weed as my topic because I instantly thought of a way to break down my research into five separate pages. My page break down will be the homepage, and then 3 pages dedicated to the three main types of flowers, and finally my fifth page will be a breakdown of the importance of keeping marijuana out of reach from minors and animals. I also decided on this topic because I felt this topic offered a chance to play with photography. Photography and photoshop are not one of my strongest suits, so I thought I could plan a mini photoshoot and try to strengthen my design skills. I plan to connect all my pages together by using the repetetion of cubes, and a limited color palette. My main goal for this project is to have a site running by the due date, I say this only because I'm new to coding and I'm a bit intimidated lol. I think by the end my site will be looking pretty and functional.
Inspiring site of the week: I've really been enjoying other creatives designs from Behance
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: Well the first person that comes to mind is my boyfriend. As soon as I was given the brief for this first project, I knew it would be a fun task to make the site about marijuana. I also thought of all the ways I could impress him with my new coding skills. My boyfriend, Michael, really inspires me to push myself to out of my comfort zone. I really hope I'm able to pull off my design idea, because I think he'll really like it.
Inspiring site of the week: leafly.com
Week Four
Prompt A: Write about your project. What went well, what went not-so-well, what was your favourite part? What do you wish you knew before you started.Prompt b: Considering these articles, make a list of 5 things to keep you going when you feel resistance or discomfort.
Response A: Honestly, my project one was a mess at first. All of October kind of felt like a shit show to me. I really couldn't understand a lot of the information I was getting from a lot of my classes, as well as the overload from work. After a couple weeks of a mess I finally started to understand the css aspect of our websites a bit better. I would still say that my project 1 has a lot of cleaning up to do, but overall I enjoyed the process of seeing my website/design come to life. I will admit it's pretty frustrating when things don't go as plan, but working around those areas really is in some weird way a confidence booster, Like 'yeah that's right I did that'. I'm really hoping that my project 2 turns out way better, because although it can be frustrating I do enjoy the overall process of coding. I really liked coding the overlay of areas, and what I thought at the moment was "mastering positioning", by the way thank you for that demo of the css grid, because I think I now have a better understanding of positioning. My least favorite part was when I would make the smallest of errors, because I really didn't know what wasn't working, I know I just need to have more patience, because there lies my issue lol. I wish beforehand I would've focused on the grid, because a lot of my design was flying on different areas of the page, for my next project I will spend some heavy dedicated time on my wireframes and design comps. Response B:
- Remind myself that there is a goal working in progress
- Remind myself it won't last forever
- Keep in mind, that everyone else is going through their own struggles
- Taking a moment to breathe helps me out
- Rewarding myself once the situation is over
Inspiring site of the week: At this point every website that is highly functioning is very inspiring lol I love the background video and fixed positioning of the nav. ruckusmarketing.com
Week Five
Prompt: Compare the site you are redesigning to 2 similar sites. Consider their content hierarchy, attention to customer needs, ease of use. Write about your findings. You may use a SWOT analysis template(link). Response to Umoju Miller talk.
Response:
Week Six
Prompt:Design Journal 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 decided to work on redoing the ice cream brand Ruby Jewel's website. I found that I didn't really find their site aesthetically pleasing. I felt instead it seemed a bit outdated and bland, I just felt the site needed some touch ups and I also felt that this direction could fuse both my own personal skills with some new approaches I have not tried, in regards to design work. So I deicided to check out other competing ice cream brand sites to see how they solved this issue. I checked out Salt n Straw and, what's the scoop. What I really liked from both of these sites were that Nav stays fixed on the page at all times, I also really liked the images used on the home page, really draws in the type of consumers/ community that revolve around these shops. I really didn't find much that I didn't like from these two sites, if anything they just encouraged me to make Ruby Jewel's new website give the brand a luxurious feel. When I compare my design comps to the old ruby Jewel website, I can't hekp but feel excited because I defintely like the direction I'm headed in.
Inspiring site of the week: Bigthink.com
Week Seven
Prompt: Write about your project. What went well, what went not-so-well, what was your favourite part? What do you wish you knew before you started.
Response:
Week Eight
Prompt: Design Journal prompt: Read this article on mobile first design and share your thoughts on mobile first vs desktop first.
Response: After reading, Xia's article on why we should be desiging mobile html first, I can say I completely agree. The majority of the population has access to a mobile phone, since owning a 'PC', can become a bit pricey. Besides that I find that we catter towards our younger generations, and the majority of younger generations are more likely to be able to afford a phone when compared to laptops. I feel like if we start with designing for desktop first we may want to start adding all those fun vibrant interactions, that mobile css/html may not be able to handle. I also found that I agree that it is easier to add than remove, so the idea of starting with mobile, so you can add to it later makes for an easier web page design journey.
Inspiring site of the week: asoftmurmur.com
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. OR If that's too challenging right now, consider people in your life or people who've inspired you. Think about what drives them, what their "why" is. Why did they work so hard to do XYZ, was it from past experiences they had, was it because they saw a need they were called to fill? What's their deeper "why?" Ask them if you know them, or look up some biographical information and try to figure it out. Write about either you or your inspiration.
Response: I first wanted to say, thank you for all your hard work, I saw your video and it made me a bit sad, it never is my intention to hurt my professors because I know at the end of the day you all are trying to help us out. I wanted to tell you, because I can only personally speak for myself; but this term has been very hard, a lot of us are struggling through personal hurdles, financially, mentally and also physically. I can personally say this term kicked my ass, I came into it head strong hoping for the best, and I can say that by the third week in I was already exhuasted, lots of students may not speak out because we all have our own fears, I know I'm not the only student in this course that has been going through a lot this term, even the mundanest of assignments feel like the most hardest, please know we are all trying our best, this term has been unlike any other, even comparing last spring, fall season really hit hard this time around, I know I've been dealing with seasonal depression, maybe others as well. I'm sorry for any hurt that you may have felt, but please do know that I appreciate you, and I know a lot of my fellow classmates do as well. Now to answer the prompt, and btw I do enjoy this journal entries, they help me self reflect a lot so, I bummed others do not take them seriously. Now I always have my "whys" bouncing aroumd in my brain, I stress way too much so I can gurantee I'm always fighting for a reason as to why im here and why I'm even trying. The answer to me is pretty simple, I want to help others, especially my family. I come from a poor background, and always feel like I'm struggling up the hill, nothing in my life was handed to me, I've worked since I was 16 and I have earned everything that I own today. I want my future children to have it easier than I did. I don't want money to be an issue, I want to live successfully and happily. I ant my parents to be able to rest for once, and not have to worry about who will cover the extra expenses of the month. That's truly my 'why', I'm here in this Design Program because I love to create and because I know realisticlaly this is the carreer path that I'd have the most fun with that could actually gurantee me a career.
Inspiring site of the week: theofficestaresback.com
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: