weebly

My group and I have decided to use Weebly instead of Dreamweaver. I am a little sad because there's less designing involved in Weebly but with the time constraint, Weebly will help us more efficiently. It was actually voted #4 by TIME magazine for the 50 best websites in 2007. It's a widget-based website so it's really easy to use. You pretty much click and drag then edit. It's also convenient because more than one person can be logged into the account which allows all of our group members to edit at the same time. Dr.Bremm mentioned the website in class but after actually having used Weebly, I definitely recommend it.

cool stuff

Click here to see 20 websites with really cool layouts. If you look at the worst websites in my previous entry and then compare those to the ones compiled in this blog, you'll notice that appearance is important. You can't judge a book by it's cover but you can definitely judge a website by it's layout. That was really corny but it's true. In a way, with this project, we're given a blank canvas with our mouse and keyboard acting as paintbrushes. That was also corny but this website is going to test our artistic skills way more than our previous two projects. Thank God for Dreamweaver is all I have to say.

design with common sense

worst websites of 2010

When it comes to websites, the content is important but honestly, it's about the visual appeal. You could have the most useful information but if it's arranged in a way that irritates the readers, you've lost your reader at the first click. With that said, I think the simpler the better. I really don't understand people who create websites that have hard to read text, in terms of color, background, and size, that is. Why in the world would you present information that is unreadable? It might as well be a blank page then... Creativity should be explored but within the realms of basic common sense.

facebook generation

We have now begun the last and final project for english1101, the Atlanta Art Guide and I guess as a pre-planning tool, I want to jot a few notes down and hopefully it'll help not just me but anybody reading.

So I think interaction is going to be HUGE. By interaction, I mean the type of interaction we have with facebook everyday when we "like" stuff or comment on walls or join various groups. I know we're creating an art guide but thinking about the audience of this project which would be the Georgia Tech community, and more specifically- us, college students, if my group and I could weave in interaction tools like the ones on facebook, our website would take a familiar shape for the intended audience enticing them to visit the site. I hate to admit I'm part of the facebook generation but I am and aside from other great things that facebook offers, interaction is definitely one of them, making it the most visited site for me and probably all of you.

museum experience part 2

I can add my trip to the High with my group members today to my list of museum experiences and one that I enjoyed. Going to the museum with fellow peers definitely made the trip a pleasant experience because as I mentioned before, I feel extremely out of place in art museums, like I shouldn't be there. But today, I had a purpose for being there and knowing there were others in the same boat assured me I didn't just stroll into a museum by accident.

The Titian exhibit, for those of you who visited already, are paintings and drawings from the mid 1500's that includes mostly religious human subjects. This was vastly different from where I spent most of my time during my previous trip to the High which was on the 3rd floor looking at modern and contemporary art. Christina already beat me to blogging about our adventure today but one big difference I too noticed right away was the color of the wall: Titian exhibit- red, contemporary permanent collection- white. This popular museum trend of "white spaces" is something I accepted as the norm for museums because that's pretty much all I've been exposed to in my lifetime experience of museums. So the red today was different. In retrospect, if Titian's Diana paintings were displayed on white walls, it wouldn't have worked out as well as it did with the red walls. Why? Because his subjects are fair skinned and light so there's a definite contrast that exists between the color of the subjects and the color of the wall that garners my attention as a spectator. I like to believe that is a good thing.

red wall

museum experience

I missed class Thursday but having read the Weil and Hein readings and judging from other blog posts, we're now talking about museums. Hein talks about the "museum experience" in one section and from what I understand, he talks about the museum experience as one that is advertised as a unifying participation but actually, what makes a museum experience memorable is the uniqueness of each individual's trip. I'm appreciating art more now because I'm taking this class but recalling on my past museum experiences, I was that girl who walked aimlessly ooh-ing and ah-ing just for the sake of ooh-ing and ah-ing because, well, it's art that I'm paying to admire and be inspired by. My trips to art museums have almost always been with school groups except for one time my date and I walked into the MoMA in New York City because it was freezing outside so I don't think that counts. Unless you're "into art", most teens don't find it worth their time to seek out enlightenment and pleasure from going to the museum. Museums are for old people. That last statement was a joke but the stereotype does exist to an extent. I think what it is though is that more adults than children have the capacity and openness to communicate with the art pieces and walk into a museum knowing and expecting this communication to occur. The unique experience stems from this mindset and it's one I'm learning to possess as I grow older and more mature. I think it's great that museums are trying to expand their traditional visitors by transforming this and that, not for economic gains (although this is true) but to increase enlightenment for all ages.

in one breath

 

Wow. In one breath is the making of The Russian Ark and oh my goodness, it's just brilliant. It honestly makes me one to visit the Hermitage in St.Petersburg. I think this will definitely go on my bucket list. So the mastermind behind this movie is Alexander Sokurov and he kept saying throughout his interview that he only wanted to be recognized for the artistic result of the movie and not for anything else. Believe me, he is truly humble for declaring such a statement because after watching the making of, I don't think anyone can disagree that directing, producing, and filming this movie was somewhat of a miracle and that it was able to be done in a single day because wow, Sokurov, Büttner (cameraman), the 2,000 plus cast, and assistants were literally working with a time bomb. Anyways, I liked the critic that was interviewed a couple of times in the making of. He "got" what Sokurov meant to portray with this movie and it's really about the relationship of the Hermitage and Russia as two interconnecting entities; the relationship between life and art, life and culture, art and culture. Soukurov also delves into the relationship between Russia and Europe, a relationship that isn't so... nice and equal. Unfortunately, I don't know enough Russian and European history to comment further but yeah, really interesting stuff. And lastly, the ending- that was my favorite. Sokurov's ingenious view of seeing the Hermitage as a floating ark for Russian culture and history in the water that lives on forever is just brilliant. Brilliant!