Archive for February, 2008
Brief: We’re theming!
Thanks Michael!
Over the next two weeks we will start making our themes. Starting from design, through HTML/CSS and further through Wordpress. You’re going to have two main deadlines over the next two weeks:
By Tuesday, March 3th:
- Upload the Photoshop designed mainpage of your blog. Based on the way you defined it for today (purpose, inspiration and so on)
Rather than using only html/css elements, try to think how background images can help you spice up your design, check CSS Zen Garden (and others) for inspiration. Use Firebugs to check how things are done behind the scenes. - Comment on at least 3 posts by other students (if you post early you get more feedback, so start working this weekend)
- Try installing themes on your blog and look through their structure
- Install the Sandbox-BP theme into your wp-content/themes folder, turn it on, play around with it.
By Friday, March 7th:
- Upload the revised design for your blog based on the feedback you got from your classmates.
- Start writing your extend.css file to add to the default styling
By Tuesday, March 11th:
- Post a link to your blog with your own design starting to be implemented and with questions and tips about building a theme
- Use our discussion list to flag issues and questions to the rest of us (by all means don’t wait for the last moment)
- Comment on other’s posts and questions
For our next class Friday, March 14th:
- Try to have your main blog page as close to completion as possible.
Enjoy!
thanks again Michael!
see you in two weeks,
Mushon
Tape Tutorial
http://i.dream.cx/tape2/tape_v1_5.html
I updated the site without black borders and took away the Tape Transfer title for the intro. Included new photos for the crucial steps as well as introduced numbered listing for instructions.
Wordpress themes I found.
http://www.bestwpthemes.com/minyx-20-lite/
not a bad way to organize a mass amount of data
http://templates.arcsin.se/wp-demo/natural-essence/
designed with a simple color palette and easy on the eye. typography for the navigation is good though color is debatable.
http://www.bestwpthemes.com/elite/
direct and to the point
My Website
I uploaded my site to the cleverly named charleswaite.com
check it out: http://www.charleswaite.com
This is more of a rough than final in that I havent put in the images yet. I was struggling for a good while trying to put a drop shadow onto my divs but I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out so I figured I would leave it until later (if I even need them).
An image of what I intend to design is here: http://www.charleswaite.com/tutorial.jpg
Has anyone else had problems with getting colors to look right on the web?? Mine are always too light compared to the photoshop versions….
CSS assignments
Below are the different stages of my webpage.
NODE BOX
So this week I’m going to introduce to you an open source application called NodeBox. NodeBox is a Mac OS X applciation which allows its users to create 2D visuals by using Python programming code. Users can export them as a PDF or Quicktime movie. It is a free application and you can visit the website here for further reference.
When you open program, you’ll see three windows (code window on the top right, output window on the left, and messages on the bottom right). The code window is the place where you write up all the necessary codes/scripts in order to execute an output. You can often press command (apple+) R to see what is being generated and you’ll see the output on the left output window) The messages window shows error in oyur scripts and it is important to make sure the script is written in the exact way or it would not work.
I think this program can be quite useful as you can then use the exported pdf files and transport to Illustrator to ungroup and make further changes without losing the quality. Also, Nodebox allows you to export a file in multiple pages, it is useful to use this program especially when you’re using a random commands in the output.
Above are some examples, which NodeBox is able to do.
Blueprint folder
Hi,
I added the blueprint folder to my site, so hopefully it will work, and I’m going to try to include the link in the post. I’m having a problem with my file though.
The following is my link to the css in my html:
It looks correct to me, however when I go to change the styling in screen.css nothing happens… for example I’ll put body{color:#009933;}, but when I save it and put it in Firefox nothing changes. Is something wrong with my link?
Thanks,
Sheila
html
Hey guys,
I just figured out all my web hosting and ftp stuff! This is my link:
http://sheiladesign.com/
If any of you are able to look at my html and let me know what Im doing wrong I would be so grateful!
Thanks,
Sheila
Brief: Finish the tutorial, start thinking of a blog
Hi Class.
Next week I will unfortunately not be with you, I will be replaced by Michael Mandibeg, a new media artist, design educator and web developer who will be introducing you to the behind the scenes of WordPress.
We will give our tutorial another week so we can feel good about moving to the next assignment and knowing we have learned some CSS while we were at it. We will also setup our hosting plan and install Wordpress. And we’ll also start research towards our final project involving infiltrating a real open source project and giving our Graphic Eye for the Open Source Guy.
So:
- If you still need to, finish your tutorial CSS layout. Use the Blueprint mailinglist and our mailing list to bounce ideas instead of slamming your head agains the keyboard.
- Choose the theme for your Wordpress theme:
- What kind of blog is it? (if it’s even a blog…)
- Who is it for?
- What are the functions it should fulfill?
- Pick three inspiration sources one for content, one for structure and one for presentation.
- Go theme hunting through the thousands of free-software themes out there on the internet. Post three of them to our blog in the form of a thumbnail + a links to the theme page.
- Install the The latest Wordpress release on your site:
- Follow the one click install id you’re on any of these (and others) that provide it.
- Or the step by step 5 minute install tutorial on Wordpress.org or the visual tutorial over here.
- Next week Michael will show you around the nuts and bolts of Wordpress, so make sure you’re prepared.
- Start searching for an open source project to contribute to.
latest apt. tutorial w/ css.
Here’s the latest site:
http://www.ryanhines.com/osd/apt/
And PS grid:
Photoshop Design
Hi,
I am still finding blueprint really difficult. I am just posting my photoshop design, which I tried to keep as simple as possible. Sorry I don’t have everything else yet, but I’ll keep working at it. See you in class!
Sheila
