Category: AAD 086 SP19

The awesomeness of a Bio Generator

I was happy that we are picking up steam in class, but the most exciting thing last week was the automatic BIO GENERATOR.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS AWESOME THING. There are so many sites that say “write something about yourself” and I have no idea (or no desire) to share a bit, NOW I HAVE A TOOL TO HELP. This is great!

Additional item was the miasma that that is font choice. Yet another piece of your choice that can make or break the look and feel of your website. Yet another small tidbit that people over-choose when making (or not making) choices in their site.

Yet I am not surprised that such choices are made. In some places there are no choice because the font choices and sizes are already made in advance by a company “style guide” which tell you the format that is acceptable. This can be limiting as it is comforting as you are not flooded by well meaning employees telling you to change this or that. Those rails can help you finish your projects quickly as well as protect the overall look and feel of the site.

The other sites I have seen are made by a committee of managers, with a lot of political wrangling behind closed doors for each and every centimeter of the page. No wonder those sites look like a Jackson Pollock.

Journey Entry – Week 3

This week was a challenge. I’m still having issues with the FTP site so it’s been frustrating to get my final project file loaded to Canvas. After many attempts, I think I finally figured it out. Hopefully, it will show up now and Bill can see it.

It was also hard getting back into the groove of writing CSS. It’s been almost a year since I took the beginner web class, so I forgot most of it. However, once I got back into writing CSS again, it all came back. =)

Process Decision-making

The article Better Web type – A Guide to Combining Fonts, reminded me of the great guidlines for choosing and pairing fonts. I appreciated the walk through in determining a sans-serif headline font and the thought process related to the decision making.

And something new I learned from this article is, when matching two fonts, make sure their x-heights align. I had not consciously realized and understood that tip.

And I liked the process info graphic to evaluate fonts.

Great article

wk3 learning journal

I learned this week that there are typographical rules for web design as well as print. I was pleasantly surprised to know that we are encouraged to use one font throughout a whole site. I also learned that ftp uploads require attention to detail, especially when updating a document or file. You have to remember to upload the new one and override the old one. I also learned that styling in CSS requires a lot of memory retention skills. If you continually practice writing the code out instead of using the code generator in Dreamweaver, you will get efficient at it. However, if you are unsure how to code something, the code generator is a real help.

What I’ve Learned So Far

So far I’m getting back up to speed and getting back into the hang of HTML and CSS and I’m excited to start our first big project! So far in class I’ve learned about the Eric Meyer Reset and its advantages and drawbacks, along with normalizing CSS. I’m happy to learn that there are different ways to choose from and I’m excited to learn first hand how to navigate both. I’ve also learned about the numerous FTP applications I can choose from to upload content online. I’m also happy to learn that we have a code checker that we can use during our assignments. Coding the HTML resume was alot of fun, however simple mine seemed to be, it was a great refresher assignment to jog my memory from Natalie’s Intro to Web design class I took two semesters ago. Im really enjoying this class already and I’m excited to learn more!

Week 2 – I can do this!

What I recall from this week was a contrast from last week. Our first assignment was to create a “future resume” and when I started it I felt panic as I did not recall how to start a page, make sections, put things together or make it look good on the page.

I can do this, at least for the second week!

The second week I brought my binder and my Dreamweaver text book to class, but found that I didn’t really need it (yet). This made me feel pretty good. It wasn’t fantastic coding, but it was up within the time limit. I felt pretty good about that.

I am looking forward to learning more. The pace is nice and slow at first (as it should be), but I am looking forward to coding my first project.

html and CSS

I learned this week that it is very important to know the functional differences of html and CSS. Html is used to provide the structural outline and content for the website. It is not used to style or make the website visually appealing. CSS is used for styling and to make the website visually appealing. Both are coded differently, however, both have Emmet enabled shortcuts. I really enjoyed learning how to build code faster and more efficiently.