Group items tagged

I was taught web design based on a set of pretty intense basic rules (like use the color blue as I mentioned last class), but here is an awesome site that not only tells you the rules, but how and why to break them. The text and tables concepts especially apply here.

This is a website that offers limited print, affordable art. I like to look at what is being done other places to get ideas for my own work. This website and one other one (which I will post next ... which you'll see first) are two websites that I like to look at a lot for stylistic ideas of how to do poster designs, typographic designs, website designs, and book covers.

A simple and straightforward guide.

Some thoughts and examples of web design, in case we'd like to revamp our sites after the class has finished.

I know we would all have access to this via our reading and a Google search, but I thought I would throw it up here for easy access in case anyone was interested in checking it out.

This is a web site of a friend I used to work with, and thought it was a nice example of designing a web site for a professional portfolio as well as including personal interests and links.

Another resource for thinking about design.

Some website design ideas ...

One more website that I think some may find helpful. It is a website the highlights some menu designs. As such it offers some cool ideas for thinking about homepages, layout, and typography.

This is a podcast-interview of Crumlish and Malone, whom we will be reading in a few weeks. It's a bit long, but if you get the time you can listen to a few parts of it.

This group is briefly mentioned in the chapter on Pranks in this week's reading. The fired game designer for the SIms helicopter game left and joined this group-- pretty much pranksters of an online nature. While it has little to do with video games, it has everything to do with ethos in an Internet age.

Google's New Search Algorithm to Crack Down on 'Black Hat Webspam' By Ars Technica By Matthew Braga, Ars Technica Nefarious search engine optimizers be warned. Google is coming for you-again. Following previous changes to Google's ranking and page layout algorithms, the search giant is pushing yet another update to its algorithm this week with the hopes of curbing "black hat webspam" from creeping into search results. * Google thinks that by increasing the complexity of its algorithms, it can weed out malicious intent. Funny thing about complexity is that it tends to breed more complexity. This reminds me a bit of Bogost's book on games. This cat and mouse scenario between Google and fake SEO creators seems to lead to ever evolving code much like in natural systems where the adaptations of the prey animal to take advantage of an environment are eventually matched by a predatory animal with adaptations designed to match or exceed the prey's abilities...

A neat -WIRED- blog documenting new developments in software (mostly Internet based), also offering some tips-and-tricks kinds of features too.

Whoops

A pretty tongue and cheek article on 'microblogging' (e.g., updating a Facebook status while in line at Kroeger's).

Looks at "responsive design" and navigation menus. And if you couldn't already tell, I've fallen behind in my Webmonkey reading and am now bombing the Humanities Computing group with any article that I think is interesting and/or semi-relevant. I'll stop soon.

Finally (and what will appear first), all this talk about digital technology and web design pulls up an equal impulse in me to talk about other skill sets that get undervalued in an information economy. I read this a bit ago and enjoyed it. There also seems to be a trend currently that is leading us toward a sort of steam punk utopia where we will have a mixture of high and low technology. For more on the philosophical argument being put forward in this article, I highly recommend Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Mind at Work. To see some indications of the trend I'm talking about watch How It's Made (which tends to skew toward human components of the production process and is based in a tactile fetish of understanding modes of production since you do not learn how to make things ... or really how things are made) and check out all the books on craft skills, cooking, and carpentry that are exploding all over Amazon with noticeably nostalgic titles. Speaking of which, did the knitting craze end or am I just not around 50 people that have recently taken up knitting anymore?

Oh! Also add to the "evidence" list farming/gardening and the back to earth books ... and psychologically the zombie and (to a lesser extent) virus craze in movies, books, games, etc.

... and some more themes. Places you could pay to get the theme, but also you could look at it for ideas and the design it yourself.

... and my text became a hyperlink.

A Tumblr page that has updates with information on design, editing, typography, etc.

This is Bogost's personal webpage and I thought it was interesting to look at not just to gather more info about Bogost, but also because the website itself has an interesting layout worth dissecting or borrowing for our own sites. :)

Blod devoted to videogame "archaeology" as Bogost would call it. The site actually suggests reading his book too.

Bogost's game study. Lots to play here.