Semester Website Checklist

Create and define your website
Create root folder
Set default images folder with assets folder
Create home page named index
Save all images in assets folder
Create 1st child page to develop
Add two child pages as placeholders
Add page title
Enter keywords
Enter description
Set background-none, color or image
Add page content-text can be typed and formatted or copied and pasted
Include contact information-name, address, phone number, email (school if you like)
Utilize line breaks
Check spelling
Add images
Utilize borders and spacing around images
Include alternate text
Create navigation bar
Include links in navigation bar to all four pages
Utilize horizontal rule
Create an email link
Insert date with auto update in a last updated on statement
Create unordered or ordered list to organize content
Create a Cascading Style Sheet
Create and apply rules for paragraph text and headings
Include 2 external links
Include 2 internal links
Create 2 named anchors and links

Dreamweaver 1st Child Page - Semester Exam

When you return to class on Thursday you should have all the items in this posting completed as your Semester Exam.

In the last posting you created a storyboard for your website with at least four pages. You also should be created a local root folder to store the site files. You set the assets folder as the default storage location for your images and you have begun to collect information and resources for you site.

1. Think about the head content for you 1st child page. Add the following items
A. title
B. keywords
C. description
2. Create the child page content (text) for the page and begin thinking about the formatting to make it attractive.
3. Select a location on the page for the address and other contact information including an email address.
4. Consult your storyboard and design the navigation bar.
5. Link the navigation bar items to the appropriate pages (do not design the pages, just create blank placeholders)
6. Add a last updated on statement to the page with a date that will automatically update when the page is saved.

Checklist
* Does the page have a page title?
* Does the page have a decription?
* Does the page have keywords?
* Does the page contain contact information, including an email address?
* Does the page have a navigation bar that includes a link to itself?
* Does the page have a last updated statement that will automatically update when the page is saved?
* Do all paths for links and images work correctly?
* Does the page look good using at least two different browsers and screen resolutions?

Portfolio Project - Your Website

This will be an on going project while we work on creating websites. You will be planning and creating an original website without the use of data files such as those that we are using in class to learn the skills.

The focus of your website can be on just about any topic such as an organization, sports team, company, yourself, or an informational site tha provides information about a topic, cause, or organizations.

Today you need to decide what type of site you would like to create and answer some questions about your future site.

*What are your goals for the site?
*Who is the audience you what to target?
*How can you design the site to appeal to the target audience?
*How will you gather the information that will be on the website?
*What are your sources of media content (images and content)?
*How ofter should the site be updated?

Using either paper or software, you will be creating a detailed storyboard for your site to include at least four pages. The storyboard must include a home page with at least three child pages under it.

Create a root folder and an asset folder to house the assets, then define your site using the root folder as the website local root folder and the assets foler as the default images folder.

Create a blank page named index.html as the placeholder for the home page.

Begin collecting content such as pictures or text to use in your website. You can use a digital camera to take photos, or create your own graphics using Fireworks. Gather the content in a central location that you will be able to access as you develop your website.

Design Project - snapfish.com

Visit the snapfish.com website.
Locate the description, what is it?
Locate the keywords, what are they? How many keywords did you find?
Is the description appropriate for the website? Why or why not?
Looking at the number of keywords and words in the description, is it an appropriate number or are there too many or too few? Why?

Use a search engine to look up the words photo quality paper
Click on the first link in the list of results. What is the URL for the website you selected? What is the title of the page?
View the source code for that page.
Locate the description, what is it?
Locate the keywords, what are they? How many keywords did you find?
Is the description appropriate for the website? Why or why not?
Looking at the number of keywords and words in the description, is it an appropriate number or are there too many or too few? Why?

Design Project - Adobe Site of the Day

At the Adobe website, click on the Company link then Customer Showcase to display the Adobe Site of the Day. Click on the link to view the site selected as the site of the day.

Explore the site and answer the following questions about the site:
* What are the titles of the pages that you visit in the site? Write down the title names as you navigate through the site. Do the titles of each page accurately reflect the page content? Expand with details why or why not.
* Is the navigation structure clear?
* How is the navigation structure organized? How do you move around the site from one page to another and get to the places you would like to see?
* Why do you think this site was selected by Adobe as the site of the day?

Banner Audience & Purpose for Storyboard

I look forward to learning about the plans for your personal website banner. Your intended audience and purpose are important elements in creating your banner which is similar to the introduction of your website. Please make sure that you have your response posted and your banner storyboard completed before class begins today so that you can focus on creating your banner.

Logo Review and Redesign

Objectives
• Identify aspects of redesign and its importance in web design.
• Reflect on a digital image and identify what could be improved.
• Create a storyboard for the redesign of an image.
• Modify an existing image

Review your work in reference to your goals, intentions, and design constraints from your Storyboard blog posting. You will be completing a redesign write-up and a new logo

Possible steps or questions that will help in redesigning a product include the following:
• Meeting initial focus, purpose, and audience
• Changing focus, purpose, or audience
• Applying good design principles

Complete worksheet: Logo review and redesign

Individually review your own logos to redesign them.

After the review, create storyboards of your proposed redesign changes to create new logos.

Build your redesigned logos.

Building a Logo

Objective - Develop a digital logo based on a storyboard
You will be producing your logo, based on your storyboard created yesterday in class.

Activity steps
1. Look through your storyboards as a guide or plan for creating your logo
2. Select canvas size for logo. Typical sizes are 79 × 51 pixels (very small), 150 × 25 pixels, 125 × 144 pixels, and 243 × 203 pixels (fairly large for web purposes)
3. Build your logos.
4. Post your logo to share with each other.

Logo Storyboard

Create a storyboard for a logo that represents you as an individual. You may use grid paper or plain paper.The storyboard can be in black and white, with colors labeled. If you create your storyboard with colored pens or pencils, use colors that match the design.

Post your responses, thoughts, and ideas for the following regarding your logo storyboard
• Indicate the intended focus, purpose, and audience of your design.
• Indicate whether your design illustrates horizontal symmetry, vertical symmetry, diagonal symmetry, radial symmetry, or asymmetry. Explain why you selected one style over another.
• Indicate the scale you are using. In other words, if your paper design is larger or smaller than the final product, say what size the finished product will be. Professional designers usually illustrate logos larger than the finished product so details are easy to see.
• Indicate any other design decisions you made and state why.

10/14 GIF, JPEG, & PNG Post Discussion & Sample Images

Review the postings of your classmates assigned yesterday to define, describe characteristics as well as the pros and cons of the three file types for graphics. In your own blog, create a new post discussing how the file types differ and when it is appropriate to use each type of file.

Search the internet to find and save at least one sample of each type of graphic: GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Each student should have different images. You will need to save all of your work in two ways, as a set of individual graphic files for later use and in a blog posting that will include notes about the graphics. The graphics need to be from three different websites and should not come from image collections on websites such as photobucket and google images. You will need to get the following information for each image:
1. Filename-what is the name of the file that you have selected
2. File type-JPEG, GIF, PNG
3. File size
4. Website address-copy the complete URL of the website of where you found the image
5. Describtion of the image
6. Date of image or copyright year
7. Copyright holder-who would you need to contact in order to request permission to use the image

Post the image and the information about each image in one new posting before class tomorrow.

10/5 Have Fun Composit

Selecting the images of your choice, create a fun composite image in class today and post you "recreation" on your blog.

Friday 9/25 Sweet Essence! Importing, Selecting, and Modifying Graphics Skills Review

Today you will be reviewing skills covered in class this week. The instructions for the review are detailed on page 3-26 in the yellow The Web Collection book. Please post your completed image on your blog.

Getting Started with Fireworks Skills Review

Today you will be reviewing skills covered in class and in other assignments that we have already completed. The instructions for the review are detailed on page 1-30 in the yellow The Web Collection book. Please post your completed image on your blog and include a description of the skills and tools you used.

Project Builder - Meandering Paths

Select a favorite phrase, saying, or lyrics. Attach the text to a path, apply styles, filters, and other modifications such as alignments and fonts to customize your text. Post your completed image on your blog.

Homecoming T-shirts!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Working with Vector Objects-Skills Review

Complete the skills review and post your finished image on your blog.

Friday, September 4, 2009 - Work with Vector Tools

Introduced vector images and tools. As a class, we created a fish in a new document. We used the grid option to provide guidelines while using the pen tool. The pen tool was utilized to display the curve point handles to change the shape of the top and bottom of our fish. The subselection tool allowed us to modify the eye which we first created using the ellipse tool.

Create your own simple vector image of an animal of your choice. Post both the image and detailed description of how you created the image include what tools you used.

Thursday, September 3, 2009 - Review working with bitmap images

Objectives

Create a new document

Import existing graphic

Select areas of images using the marquee and magic wand tools

Modify selected areas of images using filters, easer, rubber stamp, sharpen, dodge, burn, pencil and eyedropper tools.

What is the native file format for Fireworks file?

Describe when you would use the marquee and magic wand selection tools.

Describe how you would add pixels to a selection.

Which bitmap tool would be used to copy pixels from one bitmap image area to another?

Name more than one way to access the zoom function.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - Modifying Bitmap Images

Used the rubber stamp tool to remove part of an image by copying pixels and also added details to the image with the easer tool. Worked with the burn, dodge, sharpen, zoom, and eyedropper tools to edit images.

Tuesday, September 1st - Fireworks Bitmap Tools

Today we learned how to use some of the tools available for working with bitmap images. The tools allowed us to combine images, adjust pixels, and create new images. Please add a new post describing what we learned today in class, including which tools you used and what the outcome was for each tool. What happened? Use RATS!

BIMM 1st Blog!

Welcome to blogging! Last week each of you created your own blog to use for the BIMM class. Today you are going to share with the rest of the class and world the image that you selected and your reasons for your choice. Please be sure to use the RATS writing process, complete thoughts, sentences, spelling, grammar in your posts.