Flash

Now that I have learned flash, I can become creative with different animations to improve the technique of my website. I'm thinking that for my family identity, I can have many animations showing how that identity differs from the others.

Another good thing that I can do with the animations is move my text/graphics around just to be able to make everything on the website more visually entertaining. That is what I am most excited about. I was going to include a lot of text in order to explain the differences in my identities, but by making animated text graphics that makes everything more impressive and entertaining.

This website that I found (http://www.complexification.net/) have great layering with the varying text. When you scroll your mouse over the different texts the layers change, and the texts get closer or further away. Also when you click on the texts, they get closer, and a picture pops up.


This is another website (http://www.thibaud.be/) that was really cool because of the 3D graphics that change based on where they are clicked on. I like this system, and will try to maybe incorporate that look into my homepage.

Flash

From my conversation with a peer last week, my website seems to have good ideas and good flow to it. I also have ideas about how to challenge myself especially that I have never done any of web design before. Today we are learning about flash and illustrator, neither of which I have used before. So this will be a new thing to incorporate into my website.

By using flash I was able to drop an "olive" into a martini glass. Frame by frame moving. I was able to also make a ball hit a bat. This we will be doing next week, so I think I am ready to make an animation

Homepage and style

It has been a while since the last blog. That is because my parents have been here and I have been traveling with them. But my sister is into creative web design and she gave me a few ideas that I like.

On the left side of the website, I would like to have all the different identities that I have, and when you scroll over them the text will change. I would like to make the text increase and change style as the mouse rolls over. Also I was thinking about adding music to some of my pages. This helps to add design to my website, and take away a little bit from the art.

On my homepage I have those few pictures. When the mouse rolls over those pictures, text graphics will pop up explaining what that identity is in a word or two. This gives me a chance to play around with text, and make it more of a graphic rather than just writing. The graphic does not have to be just on that picture, but it can expand across the whole page just when the mouse rolls over. I was looking at the Bellagio hotel, and the type of rollover that they have is very simple, but they have the general concept of what I want. Rather when you roll over the sections on my website, the text will change more drastically rather than just get high lighted.



I keep trying to think of different ways to improve my website, but not too complicated because I have never done anything with computers like this before. I want to include video as well on the pages to help improve what my identity really is.

Adjustment Layering

Adjustment laying was the topic of today's lecture. This helped me to combine images more together along with text so that they are no longer just separate and boring. This allows the text to be more like an image and more pleasing to the eye.

Based on different criteria we are having another person in the class listen to our ideas for our website. For example my idea does meet the theme of identity. I have about 4 different identities in my life, and the website will go linear in 4 different ways. I came up with these 4 identities because they are the four main different parts of my life where I have varied identities. I would like to have the website become somewhat organic. But that will all depend on the time that I have to put this site together.

I figure that a flowchart will be easier to describe the way my website is going to run, especially if I want to try and make it somewhat more organic.

Some websites

I found some good websites here to model for my website.

This website above is very simple with the picture on the side and then some text on the left. This is a good general lineup of what my different identity pages will consist of.

This is another good simple example of the setup. The picture and description on the left is simple for me website.
http://www.filtro.com.mx/v2/home.php


My setup of the website is goign to be very simple with the 4 or so links on the homepage to my different identities. Then there will be branches out from there that will be part of each identity. I hope to include text, pictures, animations, music, and anything else that will describe my varied identities in my life.

Below is a draft of the second page for my website that I could not get posted on my last blog.

Page two

I was unable to do another blog last week because I have been away until today. But on the other blog is the first rough draft page of my website. This page on this blog invovles my scholarly identity. I go to Pennsylvania State at home, and I have my own identity at school. The identity that I have created while in class is very different from any of my other identities.

This identity is very serious, and very concentrated. But throughout my career the identity has been changed drastically. In the beginning I was a pre-vet major, and so my identity was surrounded by students very different from me. They all grew up on farms, and around animals. I had to adjust my identity to fit in with this group in order to be successful in the major. But during my sophomore year I realized that this identity did not work for me. This is when I changed to pre-dental. This major caused me to drastically change my scholar identity. I had to change more to fit in with people that are more like the type of people that I grew up with.

The new identity seemed to fit me better because I feel more comfortable in this skin. I know better where this identity is going to take me, and this identity seems to flow better with my other identities in my life. It revolves better around my life of extreme, with my family, and with my girlfriend. Now the identity has altered somewhat since I have been studying in Australia, and that is a more relaxed identity that is not as serious because I am not taking my core classes. I am taking electives, such as webart design, that will make my identity more well-rounded and universal. This is a rough draft of the page because I had to use powerpoint rather than photoshop.

(I am unable to upload my picture right now because our internet at home is really terrible. I saved it on a hardrive and will edit this post when I get to class tomorrow. So this post was from Tuesday at 1:30 PM)

Photoshop with layering

For next week we are going to be creating a general page or a few pages of how we may want our site to be set up. I was thinking about making my "homepage" a collage of my different identities. I will have between 3 and 4 different identities that will describe my life. As I think about identity I realize that I can separate myself into about 3 or 4 identities in my life. With the layering that we are going to learn today, I can create a collage of pictures on that homepage that would be used as links to the next pages in the website.

In photoshop, we learned different skills such as layering and text to include in our site for next week. I decided to use graphics that are very soothing, and great on the eye. The two background pictures that I used are the types of pictures that will make your mind wander. These are the sceneries that everyone wants to be at, and it makes the mind think that nothing else matters at the time.

This is good because I will be moving onto 3 or 4 different extremes (identities), throughout the website. I make the mind wander first to get it thinking about what is included beyond the first page. Here is the first rough draft of the front page.