visual rhetoric: some web odds and ends

Today

1) Web design: some basics2) Tools you can use

3) What’s critical4) Dreamweaver

5) Homework and work time

Web Design: BasicsThere are some specific points we need to make as we start. We will be DESIGNING for the web, but what we’re going to do isn’t, specifically speaking, the “job” of a web designer. You might not be required towork as intimately with code as a professional web designer.

Web Design: BasicsFor our purposes, you need to determine what you want your web presence– the site you are going to make– to look like. That requires the standard wire framing and some mock-up work. But at that point,your tasks change. Instead of needing tocode from scratch, you need to determine the best possibleway to accomplish yoursite design goals.

Your goal: hit your skills + learnThis doesn’t mean that you should find something you can plug-and-chug into and stop; that’s not learning design. That’s using a template. BUT templates and content-management can be really useful for creating sites.You need to balance your needs with yourlevel of skill. You should still be learning, but you don’t wantto make the curvetoo steep

For some of you…That might mean working with Dreamweaver. We’ll be working in DW later today so you can see some specifics. Dreamweaver is good for people who either know code,want to learn code and are not afraid to stare it down, want to “borrow” easily from the web,or think they might want to lookinto a web job, as it isthe industry standard.

Others…Will want to use some sort of Content Management System (or CMS). I will suggest several here, but you are welcome to look at and into others.

WordPress

Pro tip: You can do MUCH more if you own your own webspace and upload an install of WordPress than you can with the WordPress app itself.

Tumblr

Weebly and Wix

Google Sites

The key for you……is to figure out what you want the site to look like when you’re done. That’s why the wire-frame and mock-up matter so much. You can then determine if one or the other of those tools will work for you.

Pro tip: one of the keys you need to think about with your site is FUNCTIONALITY. The reason something like WordPress is often superior to tool like Google Sites (or even to hand coding) is that you can automate how content is added and displayed.

Let me show you……some Dreamweaver. Please pull up the PSD file from the course website, posted with today’s PowerPoint.

I’m going to show you some basics as well as how youwould start to move pieces over from Photoshop into DW.

Your homeworkFor next class, I want you to have a sophisticated mock-up of your web presence/site. This should include a wire-frame and mock-up as well as a list of what features the site needs to be able to accommodate.

We will talk about how torealize these designs.