The Clause

When I logged hours working with The Clause online editors I uploaded all the old news articles to the website so they could be put into the archives section. Dealing with web design is tedious and I'm always afraid something will be deleted or that it will fix itself. It doesn't. Knowing how to deal with the codes in order to fix the problems is a good step. For me web design is a lot harder only because I feel like I have to guess and check with the sizes and codes to get everything right. Print does the same thing in a way but I'm just used to it and I have to practice more at web design. So I'm pretty much finished with Desktop Publishing. It was a tough course that really pushed me to learn something new (and scary) but I feel so much more capable now in the real world and I feel accomplished. I learned so much and although it was tiring it was also nice to do something different for a change.

Here is another video for your enjoyment:

Take on Me: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Village View Community Church

This a design critique of the Village View Community Church web site. The picture slide show needs a pause button so people can read what they have to say instead of having to wait for it to come around five times. Also, it would be nice to have a link to the information within the website once you click on the picture. As for the pictures I would use some members from your church instead of random professional photos. It makes it more personable because the whole point of a church is community and people will want to see it is an involving church. Many of the pictures are stretched and fuzzy so just make sure you edit the sizing for the best quality. The orange gradient at the top works well. Also, is the church Village View or Village View Community Church because there are two names when it pops up on google for the same website.

The youth website is really fun with all the colors and the music. The actual website does a good job with links. The worst part about the entire website is that the home page has all these easy to find links but then once you click something you can't get back to it! Once your on the website it is really hard to find things and the youth page is not linked to the youth page on the website so no one even knows about the other cool youth website. On the different pages there is a lot of dead space and also a lot of text with awkward spacing.

An example of a text problem would be on the women's page. There is a list of events but all I see is a bunch of text and I can't tell which event is which. The name of the event can be italicized or bold but don't bold the text as well. It strains the eyes and it makes the title of the event lost in the mix. I like the different colors to separate out quotes and important lines. Try using some color boxes as well and graphics. I feel like the website has a good start but it has some kinks and or no links. Thanks for listening and I hope this was constructive.

Valley View Community Church

People

One of the features in People magazine is about this girl who was bullied at school and then went home and hanged herself. Uplifting post right? Anyway, they use an assortment of design techniques. First off the headline is at the bottom. Although it is big I do not notice it at all. It is hard to read when when I have to focus my eyes on the bottom of the page. On the right side of the page they have a big picture of the bully getting put in a police car. On the top and side the picture lines up with the text but on the left side it bleeds over the fold into the next page. It is defiantly the dominant art.

"Slow down, what's on your mind
It's alright, I'm on your side
I hate to see your injury, I wish that you could transfer all
Your pain to me
Stay here, it's ok to cry
Let me, help you make it right
Let's turn up our radio, let the bands remind you that your not
Alone
We all get low"
-Karmina

At the top of the page there is a red color box which goes across the two page. In it is a bullet point that reads "Bullied To Death?" Overlapping the box is a picture of an empty classroom. Really? Everyone knows what a classroom looks like and this one is no different. It is supposed to be dramatic or give us a picture into her life but it unnecessary. Below that is a titled picture of the victim with a white stroke line around it. The tilt throws me off but magazines can do what they want. The captions are in white and are located on the pictures.

As for the story itself, it starts on the left page with a big deck. The story in starts with a 5 line big "O" and proceeds to be one paragraph in only one long column.Overall they used a lot of the design techniques which looked really good and followed most of the rules. Next time, PLEASE put the headline at the top. Thanks People Magazine.

Alternative Press

Ah yes, Alternative Press (AP)....how spastic you are? AP magazine is defiantly catering to a middle/high school music audience who loves rock music. First off, their flag is a big stretched out AP with the words alternative press below it which is not terribly noticeable even though it is the same color. The flag tends to work because there is always so many words on the front page (usually at the top and bottom to tease bands). Personally it is kind of big and stretched for my taste but it is simple. The color is always a bright, obnoxious, neon blue, pink, red or yellow. This works because the audience needs something to get their attention but because the letters are so thick it can be overwhelming. Each of their standard sections has the same headline but the individual headlines for each story are usually yellow and have a thick, boxy and san-serif font. This gives the magazine a tougher feel that matches the flag. Teenagers, especially who read AP, tend to have short attention spans so the bright colors and bold headlines stand out to them.

Pleasanton Weekly

Kudos to the staff, they have a better publication than most town newspapers. The paper is set up like a magazine on the cover and center-spread but it looks like a newspaper on the other pages. Let me talk about image and text. They usually only have one picture per page and it is in the middle of the page. However, when they have more than one picture they do have dominant art. The publication needs more art and the pictures (while they try to not get a whole lot of people posing for the camera) are not that interesting.

The front page is always one big picture and a headline but the picture is usually the main feature person posing in the camera and should not be the whole page. They need to have some stories on the front or at least some words to fill the open space the picture leaves. There are teasers for the inside but color boxes would add life to it. There are stroke lines around the pictures which I don't like and their stroke lines in between stories should be darker and not the same weight as the pictures. Their stories are pretty short so they have wide columns. Their spacing is fine but I noticed that they center their headlines that are more than one across and also their bylines and decks. In order to distinguish the two the bylines are in bold.

Pleasanton Weekly Home Page

It Happens to Everyone...So Share It!

So I have to post a video and this one makes me laugh everytime.



I love Fail Blog.

Newbie

Well, my name is Brittany, as if the the flag (so sad), didn't give it away. I go to school during the day and fight crime at night. Don't ask, just agree. I love sarcasm, laughing, my older brothers, sharks hockey (Pickles #44), movies, board games, Irish people, the east coast, cannabis advocacy and being obnoxiously from the YAY. btw, no one calls it Frisco. k, thanks.

No but seriosuly. This blog is for a class and I doubt anyone will read it except for Jamie (much love) and therefore I'm sure no one cares what I have to say but we shall see. hmmm I'm not sure if I have to use correct punctuation or spelling soooo I'm going to mix in both of the extremes.

As I'm sure you can guess I'm a journalism student and my journalistic aspirations aren't defined yet. I feel newspaper writing would be too fast for me but maybe that will change with practice. Feature magazine writing is interesting where I could get really into a stroy but freelance magazine writing is not my cup of tea. Working for a museum and putting out their advertising or doing their public relations would be fascinating as I tend to love history. If none of those pan out then who knows where I will end up. Maybe owning my own bookstore???

With all that said the one aspect of journalism that I love is getting to the truth and letting people have that information for themselves to decide upon. Also, giving a voice to those who don't have one and getting to know people who have different fields of study like Dr. Mullins in the Biblical Studies department is amazing to learn from.

My design qualifications constitute having a MySpace and copying and pasting html codes into the little boxes. I have your basic microsoft word and powerpoint skills but nothing too fancy. Hopefully this course will help me to gain skills in desktop publishing that I'm positive will be invaluable and help me not to be so stressed out when I get a job and I'm expected to know what the heck they are talking about cause I'm a generation Y kid. That is all on the list to talk about, so yeah.

Peace Out,
Brizz