Once again we’ll be splitting presentations up into groups of 6 for Friday. This time round will be a little different as the crits will be run in a more traditional format, but with a group of 6. So bring your best opinions, and be prepared to give some constructive feedback.
For anyone who hasn’t signed up yet, email me – there are 3 spaces left in the second group at 4.55pm.
For project 3 everyone is required to have their own URL (eg. www.this-is-a-url.com). Some of you may already have a URL which you want to use and some may not. We have deliberately left getting a URL until third project so that if you don’t already have one, you can be considered about the wordmark/domain name you choose. This should be heavily influenced by the material around your branding. There are many different tools for helping you find a URL.
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml – good advice on choosing a name
http://domai.nr/ – a URL search engine for finding the right name
Ultimately, the golden rules for choosing a domain are that in a social situation:
Once you have decided on a domain name you will also need a web-host. This should be relatively cheap, and for your requirements shouldn’t cost you more than $15 NZD per month. There are even free web-hosts around that offer limited space and options if you know where to look.
The project 3 brief has been uploaded.
The final project will be a portfolio site that demonstrates branding integrated with past projects. Students will use a full range of digital media and web technology to present their final concept on their own URL, complete with supporting documentation. Precedents should be gathered as a starting point before authoring the project outputs.
Tumblr blogs should be incorporated into the portfolio site in some way, wither by RSS using “updates” or as a link in the main menu.
Apologies for the blow-out on Friday before the break. There were huge outages on the VUW network, and establishing a reliable internet connection was not possible. I’m pretty annoyed about this, but Doug is following up with the IT department at VUW. I was hoping that you would all be able to have a breather before we start on Project 3 which is promising to be very involved. Its also worth 40% which is a hefty part of the course grade.
So make sure you’re prepared for the new hand-in time which will be during class-time on the first Tuesday back. Thats the 8th of September if you want to make a note of it in your diary’s.
The times stand from the previous sign-up sheet which is attached as an image.
Any questions or comments feel free to twitter @ezytiger. Looking forward to seeing the work when you get back.
There’s a great guide to adding Google Analytics on the tumblr documentation. It’s a step by step process. This should be done today in class.
Can you all integrate twitter into your Tumblr accounts so that every post gets “tweeted”. To add your twitter account go to Account > Preferences.
Also – don’t forget to incorporate and build on the design aesthetic that you discovered in the branding process.
Today following the lecture we will be:
See the screencast here – friday-tasks-090807
The things that need to be accomplished by the end of today are as follows:
The Delivery outline in the Project 2 Brief has been arranged in order, so that you can follow a process. Remember that design is a process, not an accident. 
On Tuesday we’ve got a guest lecturer coming in – in class after the lecture we’ll be looking at the completed wireframes and v1 of designs.
Previous screencast here
webpage-design-template-dmdn206 (download zipped Photoshop Document – 172kb)
adobe-fireworks-wireframe-template-dmdn206 (download zipped Fireworks Document – 126kb)
Editing a tumblr theme – screencast
Above is a link to a screencast giving an overview of editing a tumblr theme.
