Blog Entry 2

Today I wanted to talk about the Critique we had last Friday, and about some webdesign that we're working on in our design class. 

Jim was really helpful during the critique while we went over each persons work. We decided to let the artist kind of explain their work before allowing other people to jump in with questions. We talked about what we wanted to be doing, but more specifically what we were interested in right at this moment. We started with Amy's dark photographs and then Elizabeth's arial paintings before we really started getting talking about whats important to think about while doing your work for your thesis. Jim discussed the idea about mediocraty vs working hard. Whats the difference between creating average work as fast as possible rather than working hard at everything and investing the time you have wisely to get the best outcome. We also talked about the idea of being directionless, being held in a kind of purgatory because your being asked to do something different. And how this can sometimes be detrimental to an artist.

Another important aspect we discussed during the critique was the skill of using specific dialogue when describing your work. Jim explained that your work will be questioned often and being confident and making sure you sound like your well researched and open for critique. This is important now more than ever when we're leaving college. I thought this was particularly important for designers because a discussion with clients is an open dialogue of your work, what you will or have already done, and what can be changed to what the client needs. 

I'm worried about what clients will actually expect me to be able to do for them, however, when I do leave college. So often we are called upon to program websites and code programs and such, but I was always under the impression that was up to the computer science majors! It seems as if a lot of us students here at MGSA are struggling with learning how to code and to make websites, and here we are again about to start on more web design projects :)  I figured I better brush up on my tutorials and research into some innovative websites for inspiration!

 Yaron Schoen

Is an interactive webdesigner that works for twitter. His portfolio is so clean looking, simple, and easy to navigate. I love the color choices here and for the mouse-overs. His sense of humor is clearly displayed and integrated into the design of the website. Love this.

Social Marketers Summit

The main website for the Social Marketers Summit, a European social networking site for this group. You don't really need to speak a different language to understand good design. This whole site is one page, the main information on the bottom and the articles in the form of pictures in a scrolling menu, with drop downs for the articles in a plain white box. 

Here is some coding help for my fellow designers!

source: webdesignledger.com

Here are some helpful sites!

Basic Java

Handy Compliation of Links