Blog Topic #9: iPoint Critique

I think as a class, there were a lot of great web sites for iPoint Advisors.  These are the projects I particularly enjoyed. First: http://mat.miracosta.edu/MAT165/studentwork/audirac-uribe/midterm/index.html

First, I like the layout of the website.  The header is very nicely done.  Nice logo and effective navigation bar.  It draws your attention first and it looks good.  I enjoy the layout of the pages especially the front page, making good use of the <hr /> tags. And especially the bottom <hr /> with the iPoint Advisors symbol attached.  Very profesional.  I think the font type is a little boring.  The Ariel that was used in blue works well but the two font types contrast too much and don't look right.  The footer is very well done too! Having it designed that way is effective because even if you didnt want to go to the contact page, you have all the information you need of every page.  The navigation in the footer is effective as well.  Great feel to the site, very well done with the layout.  Besides the different font families used, I cant really give anything negative to say because it was a very well done website.  

Second is http://mat.miracosta.edu/MAT165/studentwork/kanahele/midterm/
This is my favorite project done by the class.  You open it up and think a professional made it!  Great header and navigation.  Good rollovers and effective logo image.  And i definitely love the tab on the left side of the page that stays in place and displays the page title.  Very creative way to display what the page will display.  Great color choice, nothing is overdone in that manner.  I think the font size is a tad too large and makes the page bigger than it needs to be, but somehow the designer managed to pull it off.  It looks really great and extremely easy to navigate through.  I think the footer needs some work.  It is extremely large for not having a lot of content on it.  Even with a miniaturized logo on the footer it is still much to large and wide and to me is the only real thing with the site that doesn't flow correctly.

Now my site. Fun. 
I'm a bad critic, for i know my project needs a lot more TLC to get it looking good.  I was really happy the way my header turned out.  I don't think i made the website look professional, its more cartoonish or colorful to be taken as a professional site.  It was a site built completely on tables which i think took away some of the creativity i could have used using <div> tags.  I think the site is just to boring and there is no change from page to page.  I think sometimes that is a good thing to have static pages that keep the same feel each page.  But in order for that to work and not be boring, they have to be a really nice design that your don't get bored with.  I was happy with the fonts I chose.  The colors could use some work but the sizes and layout of my text I was satisfied with.  Not nearly my best work but I've learned a lot since that project and am able to add a lot more visually to my sites.       

Blog Topic #4

I spent at least 15 minutes lost and amazed by all the special things you can do to the design layout.  At first I didn't think that I would have many customization choices, but once you find the right area you can pretty much do whatever you want.  I first started off by going to the Design Tab on the right hand side.  There I added some text to my header describing what this blog would be about.  Then I clicked on the edit HTML and just was overwhelmed with the coding there.  I wanted to hand code some changes, which I tried but after a few failed attempts to even do anything, I reverted back to a default layout.  I went back to the design tab and this time chose Template Designer.  Then i fiddled with background colors, background images when I finally decided on a cool template with rain and a mountain in the background.  Then when I found the advanced option in the Template Designer I went off and just pretty much made all my colors on the page as bright as could be.  It was fun looking but I was not really feeling it.  I think I got my page looking better for now but I'm sure I will be making some more changes soon!     

Blog Topic #1

This is a awesome flash website: http://www.pingpongstudio.es/ .  It is a ping pong website I found, but it is in Spanish.  The interactivity is awesome including a book of clients that you can pull and drag the page using flash.  It has real neat graphics, super easy to navigate and even somewhat fun because you don't know what to expect when you click on a link.  The website is definitely a flash site because it wont let me view HTML anywhere.  I think that makes it unique compared to other HTML based websites in that the interactivity is so much better.