A lot of my work, or small projects, I cannot post for privacy and rights issues. I created power point presentations, charts and tables with InDesign (breakthrough for me to figure this out on my own, I was very excited!), and edited online books. As I mentioned earlier in my blogs, I was able to see a project from start to finish when I created a booklet for the Fannie Lou Hamer Honorees of 2010.
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I have been working most of the semester on blog masthead. I have come up with tons and tons and none seemed to what we needed for the blog. The more my understanding of blogs and WordPress grew, the more I realized what I had been doing all semester had been incorrect. After discussions with the webmaster, we decided to have a more cohesive look for the main blogs for the college: the main site, the president’s blog, and the student blog index. I was originally only thinking about these blogs in single unities, but once I realized that there are blogs in bigger blogs, I began to see the importance of keep a unified look. We decided that the student blogs would have their own “individual” look that the students pick, but the index have the same masthead. This is why we went simple.
Here are a few of designs I had come up with (not really complete):
header option for the President's page
beginnings of trying to alter the css to make the entire blog
So it is my last day at St. John’s for this fall 2010 semester. It is quiet and rainy. My internship included tasks that did not always lead to “portfolio ready” work, but they did teach me about the random tasks that the graphic design department has to perform on a day-to-day basis.
There was an article in one of the St. John’s magazines about the “Bells of St. John’s”. This was an image that was fairly dark and need to be lighter and more distinguishable. This image was used in the magazine article as well.
A Gift
I am researching more school blogs right now. I have learned enough about WordPress to just confuse myself with the different options at this point. John Hopkins’ blog seems to be a network of blogs that link to each other. In researching this, there seem to be a few main blogs that point at each other in the navigation bars, the Hopkins insider and Hopkins interactive… the latter seems to be the dominant blog with the other ones supporting it.
My goal is to set up a blog that shows the events at St.Johns as well as the Presidents blog, I know they want to eventually add-on student blogs as well. I need to be able to create an infrastructure that can support add on’s.
So part of learning is learning from mistakes. Being absent minded and going to town on deleting and moving obsolete files, I did not do the same on the remote server. Since I am new at this, I really am not surprised at myself for forgetting this minor but EXTREMELY important detail. So after two hours, still removing pdf’s from the remote server. I hope to finish next week.
I am still working on a build for the President’s blog. I am struggling with the positioning right now so I intend on going back and working on the cosmetic side. I know they want to keep it sort of plain, but I want to add something.
I finished moving old files to the review folder on the web page today. File organization on such a large site is vital to the web masters to help locate needed files and what is being used and what is not. While there are archives kept, deleting files is still intimidating so we created a folder to drop “unlinked” files into so the web master can have the final say in what to delete and what not to delete. I also am beginning to rename the pdf’s using a naming convention that was agreed upon by the web master here in Annapolis and the one in Santa Fe. I have to open some files to be able to accurately name them, but the convention we are using is:
filename_1011 for yearly
filename_1011_10 for monthly
filename_1011_spr (or fall, wntr, sum) for quartly
I had to write this down so I don’t forget how its done. Now I have to sort back through the files in this one file and rename them so they are easy to locate and have names that are meaningful to their content and the year/month/quarter is easily identifiable.
When a site goes from web master to web master, different conventions are used. I do not know if they have a “style” page that displays the rules and how they should be used for the next person to be able to easily identify. I will find out if such a page exists, not so much for the naming purposes, but for when the site will be re-done which is in the discussion process. I am sure they have one, I just have not seen it.
I am learning more every day. I got a look at the work orders and the process that they go through. I think I like both print and digital because having a physical work order helps remind you of what needs to be done. When you have the order digitally, it is easy to ignore files sometimes… I am sure I could get used to it one way or the other, but I know I love my reminder post-its…
I have created 3 different wp comps for a blog for my internship. They want to keep it more on the simple/ user-friendly side, but I am unsure whether or not I have used to many gradients and textures… I am thinking I will come up with two more on the simple side before I post them on here and show my boss. I have spent more time today sifting through old pdf’s and moving them to another folder to later decide their fate. I have deleted a few files that weren’t linked to the site and be out dated. There were quite a few that were not linked, but did not seem redundant so we decided to make a folder “for review” so the decision does not have to be mine. It is intimidating deleting files, even if they are archived, on a site that is not yours.
The event I did the brochure for was on Sunday… I had a stack of them on my desk when I came into work this morning. I realize I didn’t post any updates last week. To catch you up to speed, I got a tour of Whitmore printing off of Moreland Pkwy in Annapolis. Mr. Shenk was nice enough to give me the tour on such a busy work day. The size of the machines were impressive! The ink seems to seep into your lungs when you step into the basement of the large-scale printers. The quality and color of the documents produced amazed me. As much as I love web design, I have always loved Paper and color and prints. It was a great morning for me, despite the rush of running the proof back to them and getting the corrections made. I did not get much of a chance to go over it as thoroughly as I would have liked. Since it was my first, I hope to only improve and learn from my mistakes.
My supervisor is very encouraging, she is rewarding me for a job well done with Thai food on Wednesday. I am very happy about my payment with food. I will update on my menu choices Wednesday.
One thing I am learning, not many people are motivated when money is not involved. After many letters coming in late, past deadline, I need to keep the realistic one. It was a great learning device. I hope the final product will work. Accomplished at around 6:30pm this evening… an entire day’s worth of work. FLH Pamphlet
Still early in the semester, but deep in the work already. I felt really good today at my internship. My supervisor told me how thrilled she was with my latest project, especially for someone who has never done that type of project before. It is nice to hear that after putting quite a few hours into something. Of course I had to re-visit my design and make it more applicable and easier to read and to accommodate as much text as possible. We need to send this to the printer Monday, while I am still getting in letters from politicians to place in the program. I still have files to place, but I have a good 4 hours Monday to get it done. Good thing I work fast and efficient!
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