Journal 22: October 13

Another thing I've been noticing from the readings lately is the importance of logos to their respective companies. I guess, as a consumer, I never realized how much thought and importance was placed on the millions of logos put in front of my face. Each company designs their logo with so much thought and detail in an effort to convey what they intend to bring to the marketplace: quality, integrity, class, etc. It's helping me realize just how complex every part of our society really is.

Journal 21: October 13

While doing my class readings today, I discovered we're going to be learning some CSS this week! Although I don't understand HTML as much as I hope to in the future, I'm excited about the chance to further my knowledge in Web design. After this reading, I'm not as intimidated by it as I used to be - it's just code! Cool!

Journal 20: October 12

I was reading an article this morning about bad Web sites. I was kind of shocked to hear the writer's opinion that it's easy to find good sites. I don't know if I agree with that. Sure, most of the Internet is functional and with purpose, but that should be the standard and not the standout. I think for a Web site to be considered good, it must transcend its common denominator and rise above the competition. Maybe I'm too picky, but I don't think everyone can be the best. I mean, if mediocre quality gets recognized, everyone will just shoot for that as a goal, and no boundaries get pushed. I don't think technology should ever stay stagnant.

Journal 19: October 12

Bad sites seem to peak everyones interest! When checking my email today, I discovered a link posted by MSN to an article listing some of the worst Web sites of the Internet. I gleefully clicked the link and explored the MSN-perceived worst of the Web. While the design of most of the featured sites wasn't horrendous, the content was. This reinforced the idea that the content makes the site, and the design is what makes it accessible. I think it's easy to get caught up in design, and it is important, but it would be useless without functional content.

Journal 18: October 7

Today was a good day.

I got my bad Web site finished this afternoon, and believe me, it's horrid. What exactly did I do to make it bad? Well, any time I got to a good stopping point I sat back and asked myself, "How can this be worse?" Should I use animated caution tape for a background? Yes. Should I insert a massive animated firework explosion? Yes. Should I insert lots of YouTube videos? Yes. Should I add seemingly never ending pictures and animated GIFs? Yes.

Trust me. This is a truly awful site.

Awesome.

Journal 17: October 6

Big news!

I just figured out what I'm going to do for my final WRA 210 project!

If you flip over to my sporadically updated other blog, you'll see that I write music reviews in my free time. This is something I not only like to do, but something I want to do for, well, money.

So I'm going to take some of those reviews, add some new and old ones, and compile them onto an actual non-blog Web site. This will look good for my readers, for me, and for anyone interested in hiring me in the future.

I decided on this because it's relevant to the field I want to go into, and interesting to me. Basically, it's exactly what I want to get out of this course.

Journal 16: October 6

I've been having a lot of fun in my WRA 210 class lately. Why? Well, besides the usual learning about how the Internet works, I'm learning about how it's not supposed to work. Considering most of the major lessons I've learned in life have come from doing the wrong thing, this is my kind of topic. So, what kind of poor tactics have you been learning, you ask. Well...

I'm no stranger to bad Web design. As a high school freshman way back in 1999, I entered the absurdist world of Yahoo's Geocities. What a nightmare that was. Of course, I was the most tech-savvy 14-year-old in the school (so I thought). It didn't matter that the Web site featured Smashmouth record reviews (oh man, I just fessed up to owning that), bullshit Superbowl predictions, and, uh, stolen animations of Hamsterdance. But, man, I had my own Web site!

What does this have to do with my current project in WRA 210? Well, this is my grand chance to out-do that atrocity (long-since removed by Geocities). What's worse than dancing hamster GIFs and Smashmouth? Well, this may be debatable, but one could take the stance that pop upstarts The Jonas Brothers offend just enough sensitive tastes to do this. Okay, they aren't as bad as Smashmouth, but I can't just re-make that old site, you know!

As a creative experience, this exercise was somewhat fulfilling. When I create in words, music, whatever, I like to assume other points of view than my own. I like to tell fictional stories, as embodied by the narrator. In this case, the narrator was a Jonas Brothers fangirl, roughly modeled after my sister's youth. As that psyche has, until now, remained entirely untapped, found this a very interesting creative experience. I think the, er, badness of the final product shines.