I can’t remember if I posted about this before, but I finished the new
As my del.icio.us scroll indicates, I have been reading up on microformats–coding for machines to understand, co-ordinate, and process code/data rather than just render/deliver it. Neat concept. I think this will have to be integrated into 419 next semester (my multimedia writing class), I am going to vamp up the resume project to include more consideration of rhetoric, audience analysis, and framing. If “keywords” were the key concept for the last ten years w/ resumes, I think you’ll see micorformats become the next job-search craze. I worked my first microformat into the levinas conference page–using the address property for the conference location. One small step for Marc, one giant leap… oh, whatever.
Few thoughts on the Levinas site (since I still have to” write it up” for my portfolio). The goal for the site was to create an open, inviting space that simultaneously and paradoxically created a solemn and pensive tone. That is, I attempted to invoke Levinas in the site design: his theoretical approach to difference, violence, and o(O)therness. The original site design eschewed idology, and, of course, I wanted to stick with that approach. The society also wanted to maintain the solemn entrance page, although I reformatted it and combined the image of the dove with the image of the deathcamp. I used a few filters on the dove–transforming it into a transparency and washing it with the red used on the site.
I also wanted to create a flexible design–since I think this is the key contribution Levinas can make to coding. Rather than imposing a design / hierarchy upon the user, we (standards motivated designers) can create websites that invite the user. Being a new “mac” user, I am particularly cognizant of screen browsing habits (see this great poll of saavy users over at Berea St.); as a PC user, I almost exclusively maximize windows; as a mac user (Safari), I almost never maximize windows. With the Levinas site, as with my own site, I make a conscious effort to design a layout that works for a number of different heights and widths: anything from 600px to 1200px. No easy task. Height is important, too. Looking at my student websites for 419 (and a post on how awesome these are is coming soon), my one blanket criticism is that they “waste” a lot of header space. I am consistently trying to code sites that have economical headers, thus saving screen space (and no doubt this is connected to the materiality of my browsing: my macBook screen is tinie winnie compared to my old desktop. Don’t waste space on me! Don’t make me scroll!)
Gotta get better at keeping posts on topic…this post:
- Complains about coding Levinas schedule
- Begins to discuss Levinas design inspiration
- Interjects a thought on microformats
- Discusses browsing habits
What is this, like a hypertext or something…sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Anyway, some final thoughts about the Levinas site: I wish CSS 2.x had a “border-image” property. If you look at the page in Firefox, Safari, or Opera (screw IE), you’ll notice that the header and footer lines have a very light texture technique, employing a lighter shade of red in a dirty splatter pattern (the same pattern runs over Levinas’ name–I wanted to interject a bit of chaos to keep the page from BEING too Modern clean. I would have liked to put the same texture into the sidebar, but the side bar is created through a “border” technique to ensure that it stretches as long as the main content. I’ve seen a few other work arounds for this, but there is no way to ensure that I know of to ensure that a background-image will “fill” such a space. Perhaps I need to look harder.
Oh, God, how many validation errors was that again? Find and replace, the standards-compliant designer’s best friend…
