Throughout the second week of class, we expanded more on the different
functions of HTML. Before this class, I had never used a program like
visual studio code or thought I would even learn how to code. It seemed
like something that was too complex for me to pick up. However, after
these first two weeks, I feel that I have a good general understanding of
some of the basic functions of HTML. We learned how to perform actions
such as adding paragraphs, links, images, and lists to a webpage. Through
the extensions we downloaded in class I was able to see the webpage I was
making live and see the changes in real time. I inserted images of two
kitties in my first webpage and then linked those images to a second
webpage I created. It felt satisfying to see the code I had typed out
transfer over to a real working webpage, even though the page was very
basic.
We discussed the upcoming exercise 1 in class which involves creating an
interactive hypertext narrative website. I'm very excited for this
upcoming assignment, both because I have many ideas for it, and because I
want to experiment with the different functions of html I've learned. I
want to be able to link many different images to new webpages, creating a
story that you are able to click through. I've been working on
developing my personal art style more in these past couple of weeks, so I
hope to include some of my own drawings in the exercise. Some aspects of
HTML are still a bit confusing to me, as all the coding software is a very
new experience, but I hope that it will soon come natural to me.
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The third week of class was very short in comparison to the previous
weeks, as we only had one class on Wednesday. That day we learned about
CSS and how to add design elements to a website. Again, because this is
another aspect of coding a website that is so new to me, it all seemed
kind of confusing. There are so many different things that you can do to a
website to change the layout to make it specific to what you want, and
there are so many short cuts and phrases to remember to help you out when
designing. With more practice though, I am hopeful that soon I can design
a website with ease. So far, although it can get confusing, I am having
fun learning how to use visual studio code. I really enjoy seeing
everything I type out come together on a webpage.
During week three I had to work on both a PowerPoint presentation about
the World Wide Web, and work on my hypertext project. The PowerPoint
wasn't too difficult to work on, as my group's topic was pretty broad,
covering the history and beginning of the internet. The readings we had to
do to get the information on the topic were pretty interesting, and I
learned some new things about the beginnings of the internet I didn't
know before. Working on my hypertext project, however, was a bit more
difficult than working on the PowerPoint. It took me a bit to get the
project started because I didn't fully remember how to begin a new
project on visual studio code. Once I did get it started, though, I got
into a nice flow putting down what I needed to code for my project. It
took me a while to fully complete mine because I decided to draw my own
images for my concept, but I am very happy with how the project turned
out. Some points got complicated, as the number of pages I needed to link
to kept increasing, but I am very satisfied with the end result.
This past week we took a look at how to style our webpages with CSS. As
with HTML, I had never heard of CSS before this class. The demonstrations
in class helped me gain a basic understanding of how to use CSS, however
there are so many things you can do that it feels a bit overwhelming.
Especially because I have very limited experience in programming in
general, sometimes the tutorials in class and online are a bit confusing.
For me, CSS is more frustrating than HTML, so I definitely need more
practice experimenting with it. This weekend I tried to start working on
my 5 variations project, but for some reason I couldn't get the CSS
elements I was inputting to show up on the webpage. I'm not sure what
I'm doing wrong with it, but I'll figure it out soon.
Programming so far, although only at a very basic level, has been fun and
satisfying, so I hope CSS won't continue to frustrate me. I have a lot
of ideas for the different ways I can make my five variations look, so I
hope to be able to put what I'm thinking into a webpage successfully.
In addition to learning about CSS, my group presented our presentation
about the World Wide Web. The presentation and discussion around the topic
went well, and I feel like I learned a lot about the internet. I haven't
presented a PowerPoint in a while, so I was a bit nervous about it, but
after we got into the flow of the presentation it felt okay.
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At the start of the fifth week, our second exercise, five variations, was
due. Because I had some trouble getting the CSS on my project to work, I
spent a lot of time over the previous weekend getting the project ready
for class. It was fun experimenting with the different aspects of CSS, and
discovering what I can do with a webpage. I tried to include a diverse
range of styles to my five webpages, making each of them look unique and
different. Overall, I was decently proud of how my webpages turned out,
however there is still a lot I have to learn with CSS. In class, we went
through everyone's five variations project which I really enjoyed. I got
to see all the ways people experimented with CSS, which gave me some ideas
for what I might want to do in the future. I'm looking forward to our
next website project, andI hope I can create something I will be very
proud of. In the future, as well, I would like to continue using the
coding skills I learned in this class to make webpages for personal and
artistic use.
This week, we also had our second group discussion on interfaces. This
discussion was particularly interesting to me because I don't have a lot
of prior knowledge on interfaces and the history around them. I had read
the article "What Screens Want", and it was interesting to see and
think about the way interfaces have developed over the years. I had never
really thought about how to improve interfaces or why they are the way
they are, so I enjoyed hearing what people had to say about this topic.
This past week, week 7 of the class, we began to think about and create a
simple structure for our main website portfolio project. Using HTML and
some simple CSS we were able to create a navigation bar to access
different pages for our websites. We also learned different ways to style
images, specifically how to get an image to change its size with the size
of the page. Next week our project proposals are due, so I have been
working on my idea throughout the week. My main idea is to create an
underwater inspired page, where the fish is your cursor as you travel
through the different pages. I have a few different websites I want to use
for inspiration, but the elements I want to use from them seem pretty
complex. I really hope that I will be able to create all the ideas for the
website I have planned in my proposal. There are still a lot of elements
of CSS and HTML that I'm not the best at using, but with the next weeks
of class I think I'll be able to figure out how to create the website I
want.
This week on Friday we had another group discussion, this one being about
online identities. It was interesting to hear about the way these
identities play a role in politics, and how online identities can create
both good and bad spaces on the internet. I enjoy how we have the
discussions one class day out of the week as a way to switch up how we
spend class time.
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Week 9 we went over some more important elements that we
might want to use in our website portfolio project, such as parallax and
on scroll events. My personal project involves creating an
underwater/ocean theme portfolio website, and I can see myself utilizing
parallax for the movement of the underwater creates, and possibly on
scroll events as well. Some of the specific movements and interactive
elements I want to use in my website I won't be able to do right away, as
I need to learn Java script to incorporate them, however I'm still excited
for the outcome of the first version of the webpage. I really want to be
able to create an exciting and aesthetically pleasing page for the viewer
to visit, as well as one that isn't too complicated to navigate.
In class we were given time to start working on the base structure on our
websites, however this was kind of hard for me at first. I wasn't sure
where to start because there are so many elements to even just the first
landing page of my website, but I was able to break the elements down from
top to bottom and find a good place to start. I haven't had a lot of time
so far to work on the website because I've been so busy with other due
dates, but I hope to get a lot of work done on the website in the next few
weeks as my workload dies down a bit in my other classes.
This past week was a shorter week due to the fact that we didn't have
class on Friday because of Veteran's Day. On that Monday we finished up
our last of the critiques for project one. For that project we had to
start making a homepage for our final project websites. For mine I ended
up creating a rough layout for all of the pages I wanted to include, but I
still might want to add an about me page to include some fun information
about myself. After seeing my other classmates work, I have some more
ideas about what I could put on the page. So many people had such creative
and fun designs I'm excited to see everyone's finished products. I'm
really hoping that my finished product will look like the plan I had
sketched out, or at the very least really close to it. I'm still unsure
how to add the animations I want to add but we'll probably learn about it
soon.
After finishing the critiques, we went into learning about P5.js. Just
like everything else we've done in this class so far it seems a bit
complicated and confusing to me but with practice I'm sure I can figure it
out okay. We have an exercise due this Wednesday to practice drawing
shapes with P5.js. I haven't had the time yet over the weekend to look
into it yet, but I hope to work on it throughout Monday and Tuesday. From
what we've seen so far in class P5.js looks like it can do some pretty
cool things for a website so I'm excited to start experimenting with it.
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This past week we took a look again at P5.js and the different things we can do with it. We also got a
workday in class to work on our projects for exercise 4, drawing with code. I hadn't had time to start the
exercise until that workday, so I tried to experiment and get a lot done during the class time. I messed
around with this one rotation feature, which made it look like any shape was moving around in a 3D
space. It looked very cool, but I didn't end up using it in my final exercise. Making the shape move in that
way changed the coding of the background which messed up some of the other shapes I had already put
on my canvas. P5.js is still a bit confusing to me, and while I was at home working on the exercise I kept
running into problems. Whenever I tried to add in more of the math category functions all my previous
shapes would disappear, and I'm not sure why. I definitely need to practice experimenting with P5.js a bit
more to get the hang of it.
Before our last class on that Friday, I had gone to the Art Career Expo in the union to help make
connections in the field and look for a potential internship. I had to go before Internet Art because
otherwise it would collide with the class time, and I needed to go to the critique that day to see what
other people did for their exercises. Seeing everyone's little projects for the exercise was really helpful
for me to see what we can do with P5.js, and it gave me some ideas for what I might want to include in
my final website.
For this last week I spent a lot of time focusing on adding the finishing touches to my portfolio website.
Before this week I had made the base outline for the website, but it was missing a lot of the moving
elements that I wanted to include, as well as some of the small fish details. We had learned how to
create moving elements with p5.js, so I spent time this week getting the fish and shark in the exercises
page to move. It was kind of difficult to get the one large orange fish to move because rather than just
moving left to right, the fish needed to move diagonally to the right because of the angle of the GIF.
Luckily, with some help, I was able to get the fish to move and look alright. I was also able to get the
cursor to look like a fish, which was an aspect of my original design I really wanted to incorporate. I think
it adds a fun, interactive element that lets the user make the fish cursor look like it's swimming around
the website. Overall, I feel like my website turned out looking pretty similar to my original concept. The
underwater fish theme translated well from my drawings to my website, however I wasn't able to do
the fish animation I had planned in the beginning, due to time constraints. In the future, I might try to
add more to the website so I can put every element I wanted to.
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