If you have not registered a domain name yet, do that at go daddy. Be sure to write your password and user number down somewhere that you’ll be able to find. I generally email things to myself. I think, for our purposes, the Go-Daddy hosting will work for now. We’ll go over how to register for a domain name and hosting in class today. We’ll start to set up our sites today, but some of the work will have to be done over the weekend, by you, where ever you are.

By monday, lets have our sites up and working, so we can crit them. I want to be able to go to firefox, type in your address, and have your site come up. That’s the goal. We’ll crit monday and wednesday.

important link: http://help.godaddy.com/article/1370 this article will help you get your stuff from dreamweaver, to your domain.  It will take some time.  Lets say 2-6 hours of painful reading.  if you get stuck, email me, jamesjohnsonart(at)yahoo(dot)com but not before checking google for at least 30 minutes, trying to find the answer. because ultimately that’s what i’ll be doing.  Do it first.  bet you’ll dig up the right answer.

post an updated screen shot of your home page and one other page of your choosing, ie your gallery page.  post an updated copy of your resume and bio.  post 2 issues you are having within dreamweaver/photoshop, so i can look at them and address them on monday.  register a domain name by monday.

inserting images, text, controlling  alignment, intro to CSS.  also,  more folder navigation stuff.

for monday:  functional outline:  home page, resume page, images page, statement page, links page.

today, in n0 particular order, we are going to go over some basic dreamweaver stuff, you have to take notes.  we’ll start a super simple web page, go see an MFA show, and go over our artist statements.  Homework: statement rework, image gathering, organizing, sizing, ect.  Keep making photoshop outlines.

Crit preliminary web layouts

Discuss content

Talk about resumes, and bios, and work descriptions

Trial Photoshop Homepages

Homework:  Finish Trial homepages/gallery layout.  Have collected content ready for use in class on your harddrive:  resumes, bios, photos, videos, ect.

 classwork:

website reviews, ID the key attributes of good websites

w3schools-  html basics

homework:

site design: create a series of drawings of how you want your site to look.  include all of the key attributes identified in class.  show us how things are linked and organized.  this will require at least two drawings: a homepage drawing, and a flow chart.  scan (dont photograph) these images and post them on your blog.  use something that will scan well, ie a sharpie, or anouther thick black ink.

Building an artist webpage doesn’t mean the same thing as say, building a graphic designer webpage.  Artist’s webpages should be clear, easy to navigate, informative, with enough writing to support whatever images you have, but not so much that its tedious and gets in the way.  Images should load fast, with larger, downloadable images being availible seperately.  Video should be dealt with in a similar fashion.

Sometimes, a straight forward approach is best: a known format is easy to navigate, and therefor user frustration is low.  Complicated websites need valid reasons to exist.  Why shouldnt the average person (who is less web savy than you) be able to navigate and use your page.

Straight forward doesnt have to mean boring.

It can though, and sometimes thats the best approach for certain applications.  (getting a job, showing work to a gallery, applying to grad school, showing your grandma what you’ve been up to, ect)

Example websites:

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/ 

http://www.overtheedge.net/ 

http://www.flickr.com 

http://dirtdata.org/wiki 

http://www.jasonjferguson.com/Site/Home.html 

http://www.swamp.nu/ 

http://www.tomsachs.org/ 

Website as the art generator:

http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/ 

http://www.artcontext.net/ 

bad website, interesting idea:  http://www.turbulence.org/ 

What to avoid: confusing layouts, needless animation, badly aligned buttons.

http://www.webshots.com/ 

http://www.yahoo.com/ 

blogs in general as artist websites dont work unless they are hacked up and turned into websites: http://www.sparklabs.com/sparklabs/Home.html 

http://www.cremaster.net/ 

Project outline:

Using dreamweaver, basic html and flash, we will be building either: personal artist websites, or websites that support specific projects we are working on, ie movies, animations, photo series.  We will embed video, audio and imagery.  We will learn basic flash animation techniques.  We will register personal domain names, and get server space somewhere.  We will not make lame websites.

Project will be due 2 classes before the last class, whenever that is.   So that means we’ll have 3 days to crit them, and eat pizza.  In other words, if the last day of class is a wednesday, projects are due the previous wednesday.

For your homework:  due 3/19

Post 5 links on your blogs to websites you most navigate to.  Provide 2 pros and 2 cons to each site.  Thats four sentances about each, minimum.   Be prepared to discuss in class on wednesday. 

bomb

net computer 

viola

 stats

hyper links/www graph 

have a final cut project on your hard drive ready for preliminary class review on wednesday.

listen to radio lab podcast on memory.  write up a reaction.  1-2 paragraphs.

movie review:  feb 20th
video rough draft:  feb 20th

final video, burned to dvd: feb 27th

what else?  if you havent been keeping up with your blogs (podcast reports, project updates, project proposals) do it.  its 20% of your grade.  if you havnt handed in an audio project, um, that too is 20% of your grade.