ENG/IMS 224, February 5th, 2013

TODAY1) Icebreaker2) Research blog: assigned3) Let’s talk CRAP!4) Activity: find some CRAP!5) A little bit o’ work time6) Homework

Icebreaker…

Per usual, start with your name. Then offer us your favorite nickname that you’ve ever had. If you haven’t had a favorite nickname, we might have to provide you one on-the-spot.

Research blog

You should have received an email back from me re: your focal topics. If you didn’t, that means I didn’t get your focal topic and you need to hustle to get that to me.

Now it’s time to talk about what we’re going to do with those topics.

It’s a blog…

…with research.

I know, that sounds sort of self-definitional, so let me explain a bit more. You’re going to go through a two-fold process. You’re going to research, finding references– articles, books, websites, videos, interviews, whatever you consider to be research material– then you’re going to make posts to your blog that include a link to (or a reference to) the resource and your thoughtful reflection on/response to the reference.

This assignment…

…will span the next 10 weeks. I expect you to make AT LEAST three posts a week, so that means in the end, you should have 30 posts or more.

Each post needs to include a reference of some sort and your response/thoughts (no less than 250 words from you in each post).

Grading criteria…

If you would like to suggest other grading criteria, I am open to that (we can modify this), but if not, this is my plan for grading:1)Are there at least 3 entries each week? (25 % of grade, so -2.5% for any week this answer is “no”)2)Is there a clear focus to the research? (25%)3)Are the resources quality and in-line with the research focus? (25%)4)Are the responses to the resources thoughtful and engaging ?(25%)

Let’s make the blogs

Hop over to Tumblr, and I’ll show you how to make a new blog. You’ll need to name this blog for your research question/topic and email me the URL, as we did with the others. Let’s do all of that right now so there’s no need for me to hunt these down later.

As funny as it is…

… making CRAP jokes, it really is a foundational premise of design, and it’s deeply important (and thanks to our sense of humor usually quite memorable). The letters, of course, stand for:

ContrastRepetitionAlignmentProximity

You read about it

So I’m going to give these to you in my words, along with a few quick examples, so you can get a good sense of how it works.

Contrast

Basically stated, contrast means that things that are similar look similar but things that are different look clearly different. This keeps your reader from becoming confused and creating relationships that aren’t present.

It comes, of course, from literal contrast, the light-to-dark or black-to-white of an image. In design it often ends up being about color values.

This image is a great example, and it is also a hyperlink to a great blog entry on contrast, if you want to learn more.

Repetition

Maybe the easiest of these four concepts to define, repetition is, just as you’d guess, repeating something– a color, a logo, a typeface, a type style.

It unifies and organizes.

Alignment

Alignment is about positioning on a page. Nothing should be put on haphazardly. There should be a reason and a measurement that guides where things are placed in relation to each other.

The image to the right links to a post that has some cool reflection on alignment.

And there’s all kinds of alignment going on with the new Windows 8 start page.

Proximity

Proximity is very similar in theory to alignment, but it’s more about grouping and use of white space.

Basically: similar things are grouped together, different things require space.

Now…

… pair up and go find a few examples of your own. Go to websites or draw documents from places you’d normally read and see how these four principles are being utilized in the designs you most frequently use/read.

Homework

Read for class: Chapters7 on Color in Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book, 3rd Ed.

And play around with/read as much as you can on: Colors on the Web

Before we go…

… I want you to take a few minutes to think about issues relating to digital rhetoric and writing that you’d like to discuss in class.

Go to my blog at http://phill224.tumblr.com/ click on the “ask me anything” button in the right margin, and offer up your ideas. I will use those to guide our readings for the remainder of the semester.