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Comments on Khatru for 2nd November 2009 in Khatru

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B.T. Isaac Artist Posts: 346		3rd November 2009, 01:55
		There are two things I'd like to ask about this. I don't want to sound rude or anything but are you sure this is an appropriate topic for a semester project? I mean when someone says 'of your choosing' they usually have certain expectations. Of course I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but to some, it may come down as odd. The second thing concerns the appearance. While the layout seems fine, the "skin" could use a little adjusting. For starters, you seem to be using bevel and emboss, set to outer. Inner suits buttons better. The background is also too plain, which isn't a problem, when it's an actual background of a comic, but when used for a site front page, it gives a bad first impression. Remember that presentation is very important. My diploma project for programming class for example, was a little adventure game, based on a movie, with minimal graphics, a simple code with barely any advanced algorithms and lots of text. Clearly the simplest and most primitive work from the entire class (partly due to the fact that I made it all by myself, instead of working in a team like most of us did), but the way I presented it, even got a special mention from the teacher's part. Needless to say I scored more than a passing grade. And since this is Internet Media Creation, I'd say presentation is everything.



broken_hero Board Moderator Posts: 48		7th November 2009, 05:49
		Constructive criticism is never a bad thing. I'd like to address both those comments. First, in the scope of the class, only the grad students that make up half of the class are required to do a 'professional' looking site. The half-dozen undergrads got to choose anything we wanted. One girl is doing a flagrantly self-aggrandizing site designed to get her elected as an officer in a student group. Most of the rest are portfolios. As for the buttons, I haven't designed the 'rollover' versions, which will be indented, as if you were pressing the button. I'll post the third part when I get back from band later.



broken_hero Board Moderator Posts: 48		7th November 2009, 14:34
		I was going to be late if I didn't leave right then. So yeah, third part: I think the presentation I'm using here is unique compared to the other people in my class, as well as unique in the webcomic world. That being said, if I end up getting a real domain name and such, I'll probably make it more traditional (ala how links to EGS or Shortpacked! go to the day's comic). But part of the grade is competency with photoshop, meaning that we're supposed to design the look of our sites there, slice them and stick them into Dreamweaver. This front page is the only thing I've done in Photoshop, and the only thing I plan to do there. We're also supposed to have a portion of the content to be about us, which is why there's so much non-comic stuff. It's intended to be a "Here's stuff that James does, comic, blog, writing, etc." Today in class we (theoretically) published versions of the sites we're working on to the school's servers, but I can't figure out how to access them from my laptop. I might have to be on a school network computer, but I hope not. I'd like to post a link here and on my blog, and have you guys go through and give me suggestions. So whenever I figure that out, I'll let y'all know.



Jim Site Owner Posts: 386		8th November 2009, 19:13
		Hi. Some thoughts: you might want to think about some of the more boring aspects of website design such as copyright notices, places for adverts etc. If they are suggesting designing in photoshop then I would imagine they are imagining you designing a template that can be used across the whole site - so I'd design the page that will hold the actual comics too, thinking about horizontal navigation too (ie jumping straight from comics to links without needing to go back to the homepage). Might post more thoughts on your blog.



broken_hero Board Moderator Posts: 48		10th November 2009, 14:01
		For the regular webpages, there will be a standard banner'n'buttons aspect. Something went wrong with how I posted the working version on the school's servers, so the address doesn't work. As soon as I find time to get into the J-School lab and fix it, I'll share it here and on my blog. If I can't get it to work, I'll post the jpeg versions of the banner/button combos.

Comments on Khatru for 2nd November 2009 in Khatru

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