2. TODAY Icebreaker IV: The Wrath of Ice Check-in Some words on “living” on the web The readings Homework Group time

3. ICEBREAKER This one might be a little tricky. IDK. But say your name, then tell us your favorite font. Mine changes from time-to-time, but as you might guess from seeing my web pages, my favorites right now arefor flair, for on-screen text, and for print.

4. CHECKING IN The lecture/discussion part of today’s class will be fairly short. I want to give you time to talk to your partner and work a bit in groups/talk to me in your groups (if you need to). Remember your due dates: Module 2: January 27th(and we present that day)Module 1: Feb. 10th

5. ANY QUESTIONS Before we get started? Did everyone get an Engrade link and manage to sign up? I had to send some of them through ANGEL (ugh) because MSU Webmail went down during my office hours (double ugh). Any other questions or concerns brewing out there? I know some of you were a little worried about the last reading: it’s okay if it’s a little confusing right now. It’ll get better. If you’re totally lost, though, we should talk.

6. 2 THE WEB

7. LIVING ON THE WEB We now live in a world where it’s not quite as difficult to establish a web presence as it once was. Services like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc. offer easy ways to join visible communities, and blogging platforms like Tumblr, Posterous, WordPress, Xanga, etc. allow for the creation of blogs. For many, this is enough of a web presence.

8. BUT IF YOU WANT… … to build a career as a web designer, and be taken really seriously…… or if you want to run an online business… … or if you just want to look very polished and stand out from all the people using those services I mentioned before… …you will need your own domain and hosting.

9. DOMAINS & HOSTING A web domain is, quite simply, just an address. For example, I own, among others, www.phillalexander.com. Owning that address means that no one else can make a phillalexander.com. I bought it via GoDaddy, though there are many, many options for buying domains.But to have an actual website and not just an address, you need a place to point it.

10. HOSTING Students have hosting while at MSU through AFS. You can access this a number of ways:1) through the folder on the desktop of our machines in 317 2) Through netfiles.msu.edu3) Via FTP to afs.msu.edu with your username/password

11. USING MSU HOSTING … is fine for most student needs.It has some limitations, though. It can, at times, be slow. You only get, I believe, 100 MB. And if you use MSU webspace, you are bound by a much more rigid Terms of Service (ToS) than you would be with paid hosting. Still, it’s free. So that’s a plus. And it’s fairly easy access. To determine if you need more, you should ask yourself what you’ll be doing and how many visitors you think you’ll regularly have.

12. SO, TO SUMMARIZE… I wouldn’t recommend that all of you run out and buy hosting, but if you do NOT own a web address, and you think you’re at all interested in getting serious about having a web presence, I would highly recommend securing one now and using it to point to whatever you generate as part of this class.You’re looking at approximately a $10 a year investment (cheaper with coupons or if you wait on a good sale). And if you wait and find out someone beat you to the address you want later, you’ll be sad. I actually had to do a timed poach to get one of my addresses.

13. READINGS

14. THE READINGS I chose these readings to give you a general sense of how “starting” to create a website is viewed out on the web (as a transition into what I just said ), then to give you some really basic initial pointers.So we can disregard the first reading, unless you have specific questions about it. Anyone have questions about it?

15. 10 Principles I have a series of short questions about this reading, followed by a few more involved ones. So the quick-fire questions: Were any of you surprised by any of the ten? Did the image of where the reader’s eyes tend to go when looking at a page resonate with you as you thought about your own reading (as you read the article, even?) As users, do you disagree with any of these points?

16. MORE QUESTIONS Two deeper level questions: 1) The reading tells us, point blank “Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.” Generally, we know this to be true already, but as a designer, think about this dilemma: you’re presenting your work, and you’re a writer. You have no choice but to include significant amounts of text. How might you use these 10 principles to guide you in such a way that you can make a portfolio of writing work?

17. The other question Two deeper level questions: 2) There are a number of things that are stated as “dos” here (organize, use white space, obey conventions, think about how images direct the eye, use an economy of words, etc.). At the same time, the engine that drives exceptional design is innovation. Can you think of (or go find) sites that obey some of these rules but blatantly (and specifically) violate others and maintain their effectiveness (or are even more effective)?

18. How to Ruin a Design I really just wanted you to see this and think about it as you start working because it reinforces a “best practice” while also defying one of the logics of education. You should ALWAYS talk to people about your work and show them your work, but just as you wouldn’t ask just anyone to read over a paper for a class, you want to be careful about who you talk to about your designs. Design, to a large degree, is about taste– if you expose your design to too many opinions, you could end up making bad modifications based on taste. I’m going to tell a story now.

19. The Design Curve Any other questions/comments about this reading? About any of the readings?

20. HOMEWORK

21. FOR TUESDAY Read for class: The Broken Window Theory , Preserving our Digital Pre-History, Re-writing History…, and Whitespace Remember that this is probably going to be the work weekend for your Module 2. Make sure you and your partner have plans. Your Twitter Exit question for today: What web domain do you own/would you buy and why?

22. The rest of class… … is yours to work in your groups/make plans/come and ask me questions.If you wish to relocate, that’s fine. If you have questions, I’ll hang out here until every one gets their answers OR Matt shows up to teach his class. Have a good weekend!

23. A FOOTNOTE Picking the Super Bowl teams by logo/colors/unis Is cleaner, and more visually pleasing, than the odd font used for this C But orange and blue is much more versatile than nasty mustard yellow and green. So the NFC title game is a style “pick ‘em.” WRAweb picks the Bears because of Dr. Blythe’s loyalty. Plus this bear head logo, while not amazing, is better than the cheese head Packer dealie.

24. Footnote continued It’s tough to pick this onebased on logo alone. Unlike with that clearly outdated Chicago pointed C, both of these logos are contemporary. The Steelers win out only because of the difficult to see NY behind Jets (outline only letters=bad) and the fact that it’s the US Steelworker’s logo, too. While the Jets have a very nice “old school” look to their uniforms, the Steelers really run away with the color scheme. Black/gold/white is a phenomenal and optimal color palette for any design. But the real kicker is this totally boss Steelers throwback logo:

25. OF COURSE… If logos and color schemes were the only determining factor, the SB would likely have been:

26. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!