Shawn’s been making pork varietals in honor of the impending swine flu doom. Several Texans have already succumbed to it and you know if its getting Texans down than that shit is for real. According to CNN yesterday obese people are more likely to contract swine flu than skinny people. How unfair. Schools all around Dallas are closing. I’m hoping we have to be quarantined. Maybe I can sell my story.

much hath been afoot of lately. dust is gathering on my shoulders as i write and my computer chair is now an attached appendage. i haven’t seen my friends in weeks and my parents are worried. what fate has befallen me? portfolio. on the bright side- i’ve learned i can make it on very little sleep and realized exactly how much one can get done in a day if one does’t procrastinate, dilly dally, call her friends etc.

I turned in my motion graphics final today. This was a complete blast to make and I learned so much about using After Effects/lighting green screens/using a sony pd170 etc. Big thanks to Aaron for staying so still with acrylic ink running down his torso …I want to shoot another Tide commercial with more people, about five truckloads of wet mud and about forty cameras. I also need to license “Singing in the Rain” for this endeavor. Shockingly though the ol’ pocketbook will not allow for this so it will have to stew on the back burners for a while. Tide, if you’re out there, hire me to do your advertising. I will make it worth your while.

my portfolio website is almost done- for now. the css is so dirty i’d be ashamed to show anyone (I can vaguely imagine Mr. Batchelder fainting at the sight of it) so there’s some cleaning left to do. the content could also be buffed up and now that i’m almost done i’m sick of it of course so i’ll probably start redesigning soon. i always wondered why some people, wise in the ways of css and internet affairs, complained so fervently about dreamweaver. now i know. i almost lost my mind trying to figure out what was wrong with my code after viewing it in design mode. nothing was wrong it. it displays fine in all browsers (even internet explorer) yet somehow screws up unfailingly in design mode.

On the plate for next week is flash. Last week I attended a dreamweaver workshop last week hoping to learn more about effectively embedding flash but instead got a refresher on importing .jpegs and making hot spots (does anyone remember when these were called image maps?). oh well. There was a time when I thought Photoshop was only for geniuses so hopefully Flash will be the same way.

For now-
Lesley Jane

www.bluebeatdesign.com >> found this by searching for freelance designers. i was trying to find young designers with online portfolios whose audience was either potential corporate employers or anyone looking for a freelance designer.  while this website relies on a lot of flash and the text is so small and light that even i STILL haven’t bothered to see what it says there are a couple aspects of this site that are worthy of note. i particularly like their solution to the problem of presenting additional menu options and picture thumbnails. it’s a nice relief from the typical square presentation and something i’ll probably think about how to effectively swipe someday.

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=171/171.css >> this page i found while perusing the css zen garden catalog. i actually really dislike this website except for two things- the unusually narrow layout and the relationship between the man and the small tree.  i think this is a good example of a more original way of presenting information – probably impractical for the majority of commercial websites but interesting none the less.

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=146/146.css >> another piece of low hanging fruit from the zen garden. i also dislike a lot of this page but what caught my attention was the striking collage at the top of the page-  the use of extreme perspective. i normally think of websites as completely flat- two dimensional spaces and the idea of simulating 3 dimensionality (beyond drop shadowing) is interesting.

www.creativeexchangeagency.com >> here is a great example of what i think is clean done really well and appropriate use of flash (as if i really know anything about flash). this is also a great place to go get your butt kicked by other people’s superior portfolio material but someone ought to tell peter saville (who the company represents) that his tricked out website won’t view on intel based macs.

http://www.mattbrooke.com/home.html >> another fine example of clean done really well and itsy bitsy type that cannot be enlared with apple +. matt brooke is an art director/designer represented by the creative exchange angecy.  i would like to steal all his clients and most of his work but as far as web design goes i think site provides a good example of how to present work well.

i am in general agreement with this article although i think the term “stealing” should be appended with “sponging.” outright stealing is plagiarsm and a big fat letter F on your transcript and possible expulsion and a lifetime of shame etc. but sponging is soaking up everything you like and wringing it out in your own special way. three year olds are masters at verbal sponging. thats why you can’t swear around them because they pick those words up and start peppering their limited speech with them. it’s the same for young designers. i think you have to find a bunch of design ideas that you like and want to emulate before you can start peeling back the layers of your own personal style.

another important aspect of the stealing/sponging process is that while casing the internet for stuff you want to steal/sponge you invariably encounter a lot of “oh wow that sucks thank god i’ll never try anything like that” examples. so while looking for what you want to steal you can also find a lot of good examples of what doesn’t work and what you should never try to replicate.