Posts Tagged web

It’s Alive! Bravery Transmedia Site is Up

It took a [long] while, but v1 of the Bravery site is now live at http://braverytransmedia.com.

Crossing that task off of Wunderlist felt really good. There’s lots to come, though. In order to get it out the door I decided to pare back some features originally slated for the first launch. Being nearly two months away from Bravery’s one-year active mark, I felt like I need to at least get some visibility for the work we’ve been doing.

This first iteration is essentially a portfolio, blog/news section, and a contact form. That’s it. There are some half-done pieces I hope to get up and running in the next few weeks, but we’ll see how that turns out.

I’d love for you to take a look and give me your thoughts in the comments on this post.

#heweb11 Recap

I finally have a minute to talk about #heweb11.

If you’ll remember my post last year about #heweb10, I wasn’t entirely happy with the quality of the sessions. This year was a big improvement – even if my presentation proposal was denied. The content was certainly better, I think what might have helped was that I went in not expecting much from the sessions, but expecting everything from connecting with people throughout the conference.

And really, that’s the crux of working in Higher Ed. The people are amazing.

Top 10 things about #heweb11 (in no particular order):

Roadtrippin’ it with @aaronrester
Roomdawgin’ it with @sethodell
Banjo Pickin’ at The High Ball in Austin
Being the CTO of Dropbox for 25 minutes
Eating lots of Mexican food
Salt Lick with @kylejudah and @mpstaton
Networking, networking, networking
Bacon & Marv behind Buffalo Billiards
Seeing sessions from @sethodell, @mikepetroff, @kprentiss, & @mallorywood
Learning and discussing higher ed with so many great people in the lobby of the Hyatt.

Thanks for a great conference everyone!

Redesign: Carry On

I did it. Pulled the trigger. The template is mostly done. I have a few special touches I want to add here and there and need to do a bit more bug testing and reformatting of the old content on this site.

But it’s pretty much there. The template is full on HTML5 and makes use of a ton of CSS3. That being said, I’m not testing anything in Internet Explorer for this template. Some things will still work (there’s JS to make the HTML5 elements work in legacy browsers), but it’s not going to be as pretty or as as rich an experience as if you use a modern Webkit- or Gecko-based browser. (more…)

Are You Media Literate?

The semester is ending (I’m excited about this), and that means that I have lots of homework and lots of projects — or at least I did, this past week. My favorite course this semester has been Media Literacy, and the final for this was a project to give an overview of what media literacy is. I decided to stick with my skills (as well as pick up a few new techniques) and create an interactive web piece.

It was fun! I’d love to hear what you think of it. You’ll need a modern browser (Safari, Firefox 3+, or Chrome) and I’d suggest a normal screen resolution with a minimum of 1024px wide.

Check it out.

Re-blog: Brad King – Shut Your Digital Native Piehole (52 of 90)

Some insightful observations. Why should we teach media literacy? Right here is a good reason.

These children have grown up with digital technologies, but in a very limited way. They know a few things quite deeply, but they – as we did at their age – have no great appreciation of the subtleties of the tools. The expanse and use of the tools. The possibilities for tools that don’t yet exist.

They can push buttons, but they can’t make them.

Brad King: – Shut Your Digital Native Piehole (52 of 90).

Definitely poignant. How do we increase the literacy of kids? This is why we need media and digital citizenry taught in school. Kids grow up with computers, but they don’t know how to really use all the tech that’s out there. There is also Henry Jenkins’ position of ethical standards not being learned in an always-on world. Being native doesn’t equal being literate. And literacy has changed.

Some really interesting metrics from JESS3 for AIGA on the state of the internet.

JESS3 – the State of The Internet by JESS3 for AIGA Baltimore

JESS3 State of the Internet

Google Buzz: Is the Social Over?

Online search giant Google recently made its foray into the formal social media sphere with its Google Buzz service. Tied into the popular Gmail web-based email client, Buzz was rolled out to Google’s approximately 146 million most active users, the company saying that a social network has always been beneath the surface of its email technology (WSJ.com). But even with the current social-media craze, many users were unhappy with what seemed to be an intrusion on their everyday social routines. We’ll look at some of these users’ comments and I’ll espouse what I see to be some of the possibilities that we might not be hearing over the Buzz. (more…)

A Work Weekend

This week has been absolutely great. I received a lot of good news, had friends over for dinner, got a lot done at work, played LEGO Rock Band… And now I’m ready for a weekend of working for myself.

My first task this weekend is to get the tea@elevensies site up and running. It’s taken too long and I feel bad. But I did have a rough stretch the past six months or so that deterred me from getting it all wrapped up — still, not a good excuse. This weekend is the weekend, however, to bust out this site for Ashley and Char. And then probably see what Ash wants to change (she apparently is over her design now). But at least it will be another project down.

The second issue I’m going to try to wrap up is this site. I’ve got most of a new design mocked up and sitting in Photoshop, just waiting for me to bring it to life in HTML5 and CSS3. So this site will change in the near future. And for the better, I think.

Third, I need get started on redesigning Jessica’s blog. Her new branding is amazing and I want to get it up and running for her, as well as a complete graphics package for her Etsy shop.

It is nice to have some time to work on personal design and coding. Stress is gone, and that goes a long way toward the proper motivation in these sorts of situations. Things are exciting!

Teaching Debut

In a couple of weeks I will making my initial foray into college-level teaching. Last week I signed my first adjunct contract to teach Web Page Design to a group of Sophomores through Seniors. I am really excited about this job, to tell the truth. I think it’ll be a lot of fun and a good experience for me as a designer.

The class is once a week on Monday evenings for three hours. It’s an introductory web design class, so I’ll be teaching the most basic of XHTML and CSS. But I am hoping that this group of Digital Media students will catch on quickly enough that we can really get into the cool stuff.

Beyond markup and stylesheets I will be teaching them some design. Some actual design. Because I think that’s part of what the class has been lacking (from the students I’ve known in previous classes). The students in my class will be following good design blogs and hopefully learning some trends.

As a new teacher I think I’m lucky to have such great online resources available, in the form of so many design blogs.

Is there anything specific you would want to learn in a class like this if, of course, you were taking it? I’d be interested to know what you think is important.

CurtisBlackwell.com

It’s the time of the year when the Digital Media near-graduates give their portfolio presentations so I’ve been spending a lot of time giving advice, troubleshooting and, now, grading their portfolios. It’s a lot of fun. I am really excited to be teaching Web Design next semester. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the newer kids loving web design as much I do.

One of my good friends, Curtis, just launched his portfolio/site tonight. And I want to give him a plug because:

He’s and awesome guy and put together a really cool site design
I helped him a bit in getting it together

I didn’t realise the sheer body of work that he’s put together just in the last 6 months or so. It’s pretty amazing. In any case, please check his stuff out.

CurtisBlackwell.com