Week 14a - 75% Done

This week we had to have our websites 75% done. To do this, I basically just finished up all three pages as much as I could, leaving only small details to be added later. I am going to edit my banner images a little bit to get rid of the awkward edge that is happening at the top. The white cat image also isn't very good quality so that needs to go as well. I also need to make sure all of my pages are uniform. For today, I added a footer which contains contact info. I am also still working on bringing some elements of the banner image into the donate page towards the bottom, as it seems very empty and boring there. Overall, I think I am doing very well, and am excited to have the final product next week.

Week 13b: High School Class Visit

I was out of class again on Wednesday due to illness, however on Friday I went to Cumberland Valley High School with my group to present to two classes. Basically what we did was a short presentation and then a demo that the students could follow along with. Each of us took a turn to explain a basic concept surrounding HTML. I personally explained the basic rules of HTML, which is that you define different elements with tags, and those tags have a beginning and end. We just covered very basic stuff for the sake of time. During the demo, we did some basic text elements, and also a list. Altogether, we covered headings, paragraphs, centering items, and lists. Most of the students seemed to have followed us pretty easily, however some of them needed help. This was also one of my jobs, so when a student needed help I would come by and troubleshoot for them. Thankfully, I was able to solve all the issues and help the students so nobody was left out or behind. Overall, I think we did a good job, and the teacher whose classes we were in even said so. I hope that some of the students will want to learn more than what we taught them. We made sure to provide the w3schools website to them so they could learn more. It went much better than I anticipated given that I had never taught a class before.

Week 13a

I missed class today as I was sick, however, I was told we had to have our website 50% done for Wednesday. I decided to go in and edit some spacing on my about page. I also created 3 icons which were empty in the last post. Since Wednesday is a full critique, I am eager to hear about what people will say about my website. I feel like it is missing something. The homepage seems okay, it seems cohesive. However, I feel like the middle of the about page is lacking and boring. I hope I will get some good suggestions. Anyway, here is my about page, as my homepage has not changed.

Week 12 Outside of Class - 45% of Website completed

Here is my website at 45% done. While I like the elements I have, I think they could be implemented even more. What I mean is, I feel as though the middle of the page is rather boring and that more of the elements I have in the feature area could be integrated elsewhere. I'm also not sure about the feature area image of this page as well, so I think I will continue to play with that. It will be interesting to see what others say in class.

Week 12b

Here is 25% of my website. It's pretty minimalistic, but I don't think that is a bad thing. I may still do a footer, but I don't want it to become too busy. I also changed my menu and header from the last post. I did a logo of a blind cat, just something simple, but cute, that incorporates some colors seen throughout the website. When looking at it in whole, I think it is very nice looking. I hope I can continue to carry this aesthetic throughout the whole website.

Week 12a: Studio Visit

Today for class we went to the Industrial Resolution studio to get a tour and listen to a talk. I found it to be rather interesting and enlightening. Our speaker, whose name I unfortunately forget, spoke a lot about her experience rising up and going through different companies, those companies' differences, and the industry as a whole. She was also a Millersville grad, as were many of her coworkers. I found this to be particularly relieving as it was nice to see MU grads in positions where I could be some day. She spoke a lot about their process and how they are not a "waterfall" style company, meaning they are more collaborative and work on many different elements at the same time. I found this interesting and also enjoyed looking at their work space. I liked how their office really integrated this idea of collaboration through how it was designed. It seemed that the biggest aspect of her career had to do with people, which I suppose I wasn't really surprised about, however it was slightly disheartening since I am very much an introvert. However, it seems I wasn't alone since she mentioned she is an introvert, as are many of her coworkers, so hope isn't lost. Connections seem to be huge in this industry, so I basically learned I need to get better at everything to do with that. She also talked about learning and how it is important to always be learning. Since there are some technical things I don't think I will be learning here that I will likely need to enter a career, it was kind of reassuring to know how possible it was to learn new stuff outside of college and easier than I thought. I have the drive that she spoke about so that was a nice realization too. Overall, I found this experience to be an interesting look into the industry and it gave me reassurance about finding a job after school.

Week 11: Outside of Class - Website 20%

This week we had to have our website 20% done for Monday, so here is mine.

I still have to add some text at the bottom under the "What We Do" section, however I'm almost finished with the first page. I would like to maybe add a fun footer and I am also kind of unhappy with my feature area. I am not sure why, but I think I might want to change the image. It is really tough to photoshop blind cats, especially since I am very inexperienced so I feel like it isn't very convincing. I am hoping maybe I can locate some better images to use. I also am not sure about the decorative style of the elements around the cat image, so I may change those as well.

Week 11b

Today in class I began working on my website. I basically did the framework and began adding some small elements such as text. I am having a lot of trouble making my feature area be responsive as it looks like this when in a certain position:

As you can see, the black space which holds the image isn't adjusting properly. It is only at this width of the screen. I tried adding media queries for different size windows, but it didn't seem to help. In addition, opening the menu when in the smallest screen size yields this:

Once again, not really sure why this is happening, but I am hoping I can get help in class next Wednesday, as on Monday my group will be at the studio visit.

Week 11a

Today I missed class because I was sick, however I got our homework which was to begin the website and have it 20% done by Monday.

Week 10: Outside of Class- Sparkbox Style Prototype

This week for homework we had to do a Sparkbox Style Prototype. Here is mine:

I picked colors that were a little more muted for my overall color scheme. The foundation colors are black, gray, and white. I chose this combo because I wanted there to still be an undertone of seriousness. I included an image of the illustrative details I would like to include throughout the website. I am not set on these yet, but I think they are headed in the right direction. To the right of that is an illustration of a blind cat. I thought it may be fun to have some illustrations of the cats they have. I like the style of this illustration and it is a bit different from the elements to the left of it. I think that this is the kind of style I am more leaning towards. Finally, the bottom image is the same image from my last blog post. It is the splash image you see on the home page. In addition, I made the icons using elements from the web. I would like to make them more my own, and I will, but for now they gave me a good launch point for my future design. I also made the logo for the rescue, since the one they had wasn't similar to the aesthetic I want. I played around with some ideas of including a cat face, or an illustration of a blind cat, but it didn't feel right. I still think I will change this. Overall, I honestly found doing this to be difficult and would've preferred to have built my own. I couldn't understand how to change some elements so that they wouldn't respond a certain way when the screen resized. I tried my best regardless.

Week 10b

Today in class we spent the first hour looking at inspirational websites for their graphic qualities. The rest of the time was in class work time. I spent more time trying to figure out the illustrative quality I wanted to embed in the photos on my website. I came up with this:

I think it is playful and fun, however I am not sure if it will be too busy. I am interested to hear what others have to say on Monday in class.

Week 10a

Today in class we were introduced to the Sparkle Box style prototype which is essentially just a responsive style tile. We also met with Professor Pannafino to discuss our wireframes. He told me mine looked pretty good and said that I shouldn't create a contact page since it would essentially be worthless. So, I removed my contact page. The rest of the time was in-class work time, so I started working on some imagery for my style tile and also looked at potential fonts and color schemes. I am thinking about doing illustration mixed with photography, although I am not sure what style of illustration I want. I am playing around with a more playful style now. I also photo-shopped a cat to be blind, since blind cats aren't very common and also the images on the website are pretty low resolution. Here is my photo-shopped blind cat:

I am very much a novice with Photoshop, but I think this is relatively convincing. It seems like an odd thing to do, but in the context of my website it will make sense. This image will hopefully be my websites initial splash image and will have illustration included in it. It will be a touch point for visitors.

Week 9 Outside of Class: Wireframes

For tomorrow (Monday) we had to have our wireframes worked up in Axure. I have 4 pages, a home, about, donate, and contact. The most important pages are the home and donate pages which I spent the most time trying to nail down. The home is less involved, it mainly directs the user to the donate page and provides a little bit of information about the non profit, although the about page is more in-depth about that. I also have adaptive views for each page, but have only included the home as an example for the adaptive views. I definitely want to get some critique on my adaptive views before moving forward. Here are my wireframes: