Announcements

= Class Announcements =

= = = Great work, great class. Exceedingly proud of our class for taking up the challenge and working with non profit clients. Have a great summer, and getting the marks up as soon as I can- Friday at the latest. = = = = Thank you for helping with the feedback for the fall course- your remarks were invaluable. = = = = Have a great summer. = = = = Professor Littlejohn = -

Lesson 8 Intensive Design Lab: Learning how to make a Wordmark and Lettermark
====On Tuesday, we are going to make a wordmark and lettermark, with multiple iterations in Illustrator, for your client to review, and to include on your web site's banner and possibly as a home logo. Typography is 5% of your major assignment, so learning how to do this is important.====

[[image:cct360-f10:Web2MemeMap.jpeg caption="Web2MemeMap.jpeg"]]
====In that text O'Reilly sketches this new breed of web services as emerging from the fallout of the crash at the beginning of the 00s. He pits Netscape (who were not interested in this course) against Google (who we are) as been emblematic of the two 'stages' of web culture that have propagated thus far. O'Reilly's key point is that Google is //of// the web, and not tied to traditional software release cycles. Google was launched and iterated as a service before it was a product and O'Reilly believes this point to be very important. His discussion of Google [|Adsense] is also key here – you all know Adsense, they are the ubiquitous text ads that are all over the internet. Adsense ads are remarkable because they are contextual – the (most) appropriate ads appear alongside relevant content. In the same way that Google spiders crawl the web to determine search they also analyze content to determine what ads are best suited to accompany it, leveraging the activities of users to create value. Yes, it is an explicitly commercial venture but it tailors service to user activity. The same kind of intelligence that went into building 'smarter' contextual advertising six years ago would help create a new wave of social applications that were user (and user-activity) driven.====

[[image:cct360-f10:Picture_1.png caption="Picture_1.png"]]
====This is one of O'Reilly's charts from his article. Note the shift, from static to more participatory services. 'Tagging' and [|folksonomy] are a great point or reference here. Taxonomy is a tag system for organizing web content, it is usually top-down or publisher created. Folksonomy on the other hand is letting the users decide how material is tagged (this is how services like [|Delicious] work – visit their front page and see how users are tagging sites and links). The idea here is rather than build a content or publishing model that is based off editors or in-house content managers, invite the community into the process and their habits and predispositions will help organize material on your site. Look at Facebook photos, we all happily tag these and build connectivity between media on this web service - we're not being paid to do this yet we're adding value to the service for Facebook (by generating more page views) and for us (by specifying our social connections). Wikipedia is another great example as fifteen years ago the idea of a user generated dictionary would have been laughed at by Encyclopedia Britannica executives and those same individuals are probably out of work now while Wikipedia thrives as a completely free user driven web service.==== ====Also take a close look at O'Reilly's notes about collective intelligence on the second page, the section on blogging on the third page and the 'software above the level of a single device' section on the fourth page. Web 2.0 in a nutshell! Inclusive, participatory web services that employ users to build and organize content. These services are often (but not always) free and provide value through user engagement (Facebook, Twitter, flickr, the Huffington Post, the Blogger platform etc.) and usually monetize some secondary aspect of their service. It is really easy to take the idea of Web 2.0 for granted given it "is just the way the web is" now, but it a really important concept to grasp if we are going to understand where things are headed.==== ====Anybody that is keen on digging around the Web 2.0 basement should also check out Chris Anderson's [|"The Long Tail"] argument about content, distribution and audience.====

**May 27, 2011**

 * ====Click here for a how-to on fixing CSS permissions, if you encounter this issue with an installed theme====

**May 27, 2011**

 * ====For help with your second assignment, I have found a link to very good, premium themes to look at: http://www.noupe.com/wordpress/15-high-quality-premium-like-free-wordpress-themes.html====
 * ====and a great article on how to choose a Wordpress Theme at: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-theme-choosing-tips-and-resources-520====
 * ====I do recommend that we stay with black text on white backgrounds for these projects for reasons of legibility! (Professor Littlejohn)====

**May 25, 2011 [p2]**

 * ====Assignment 2 outline: [[file:CCT360_A2_Guidelines_2011_REVISED.pdf]]====

**May 25, 2011 [p1]**

 * ====Please take the time to review your readings and worksheets from the class for your test on Thursday, worth 15%. I will be posting your Assignment #2 criteria shortly, and also sending it to you by email. Also, please have all your images ready for your client banner, and know its size that you need to make it by checking its dimensions according to the Theme you have chosen. We will be making banners for the second half of the class, and setting palettes.====

**May 18, 2011**

 * ====**For tomorrow >>>> Lesson 4 Overview: May 18th**====
 * ====In this class, we will be discussing Fluid Web Type in detail during the lecture. I have posted a sample letter for outreach for clients here on the Wiki http://cct360spring11.wikispaces.com/Sample+Letter+for+Organization for those who would like to use it as a template to do outreach. We will also create a page with images in Wordpress with the hospital assets.====
 * ====For the second half of the class, we will be doing the Apple Tart exercise in typographical design to change CSS to learn font-packs and typographical stylesheets.====
 * ====**Click here for the template you can use with your new clients!**====
 * ====//This will help you get content & decisions made on their end!//====

**May 17, 2011**

 * ====**Case Study due Tuesday, hard copy, stapled, before class: 10%**====
 * ====On Tuesday, your case study is due for 10% based on a story page from the Toronto Star. Please refer to the Information Architecture textbook on how to write your essay, and analyze your site. The assignment guidelines are on this wiki for reference.====
 * ====**Final Assignment Client: First Deliverables**====
 * ====If you are having trouble finding a non profit company to build a web site for, please contact us at cct360spring11@gmail.com====
 * ====if you have a client, please ask them to organize their images into a folder at 72dpi, and text on a Word document to enable you to start to doing wireframes for their Information Architecture. Ideally, you should receive all this information by Thursday at the latest.====

**May 10, 2011 at 3pm**

 * ==Welcome to the course!==
 * ==Having issues with keycard access? Contact Janet (with a friendly, polite message) at janet.phillips@sheridanc.on.ca==
 * ==Having issues with Mac user login? Visit the IT commons, next to Sheridan's library==
 * ==http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/five-simple-steps-to-better-typography==
 * ==http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3KESBQTD8k&feature=youtu.be==