In July I was mostly busy with Uni. I completed Packaging Design and started my next class, Interactive Design for Web. I was sick with a cold most of the month, but finally kicked it! 🤗
🖥️ Interactive Design for Web
My next class that I am taking (towards a Bachelor of Design: Communication Design) focusses on website design. A subject which has been important to me for a long time, but a practice I lost awareness of.
I created my first website/s around 2003. These were the days of Geocities, tables, iframes and fixed width layouts. Most of my early sites were Harry Potter fan sites/roleplays or Fanlistings for topics I admired. I always had so much fun creating websites, working with HTML and CSS. One of my favourite things was to play with the colour and create exciting effects. It felt like that I had accomplished something. To turn a simple idea into an actual form. Taking the time to create the code, and having a result shared with others. It was addictive.
Then the rise of the phone happened. 😶
Suddenly it seemed like there were a million things to learn to make something ‘responsive’ or work on the smaller screen sizes. My interests also started to turn to illustrations and digital art and somewhere along the way I was more inclined to use paid themes or designs.
There were a few moments through the years where I dabbled in website design practice. I felt like there was so much I didn’t know, and my confidence was low. I wasn’t sure where to start. Frameworks were out there. Grids existed, sections, headers, footers, navigation, viewports, media queries and on it went.
Could I ever really catch up? 😣
Sometimes it takes stepping back and learning from the beginning. My class has been able to guide me into understanding website design, not only from a functional perspective but in one that focusses on ensuring you can create a site that has the best chance of reaching the audience, regardless of screen size or device. A lot of the subject matter has revolved around a mobile first approach (which has been a little challenging haha).
My re-learning started with reading HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett (2011). I watched a great talk, One design to rule them all by Luke Wroblewski which made a lot of sense. It brought me out of the bubble I was in, where I was overthinking screen size. From there I began to read more articles about responsive design and started to gain more confidence.
While I haven’t built an actual site or theme just yet, I am learning more every week. Our focus has so far been on expanding our idea, creating wireframes, sitemaps and the target audience. The major project for the class is to build a fully responsive website based on a concept. I am already a little excited about it. 😄
🤢 Cold finally gone
My nagging cold that I had for most of June and July finally went. What was a clogged up nose and head turned into a cough that was driving me mad. It was such a relief to be able to breathe through my nose again and not continually barking. >D<
☁️ Other things
- I didn’t renew my learner license yet… August for sure! 🙃
- I sanded and painted the floor in my dads room. The cold weather has meant it has taken forever to dry (still drying) 😣
- I have had a few unintential hiatuses from social media. 😕
💬 Questions
- Have you ever dabbled in website design?
- What did you do in July?
- Have any plans for August?
14 Responses
I feel the same way with web design! I know basic html but the other stuff? Blah, gets so confusing. I feel like I’d sort of like to start over with learning some of the stuff! But glad you gained more confidence and stuff! And yay for cold finally going away!
I am working to relearn how to code websites from scratch. I mean, I can currently, but I want to learn how to do so accurately, so I am taking classes. 😊 It’s going slow because I still lack a laptop, but I’m hoping to have one soon!
This month, I’m trying to stay on top of bills. I need to figure out sleep, too, which my sleeping disorders have complicated. 😫
I always admired your web designs because of your illustrations. 🙂
Long time no visit/comment haha!
I don’t know if it’s safe to say that I dabble with web design every day, though most of them are experimental. Even though that’s the case, I’ve focused so much on WordPress that I end up using theme frameworks and just create my original themes (via child themes) based on those frameworks that sometimes I forget the basics. I have yet to post some of my sample web designs on CodePen. FreeCodeCamp (https://freecodecamp.com) is a great way to learn/train with web design, which also includes Javascript and jQuery. There is also a prompt project that I signed up for a few months ago called 30 Days, 30 Sites (http://codelegy.com/30days30sites/) where they send you an email of challenges on the types of sites you can build and then post them up on CodePen (https://codepen.io). Sometimes, reading textbooks and such is difficult, so an online interactive course may be a bit easier. 🙂
I earned my BFA in Visual Communications some 10+ years ago, which I think is pretty similar to your field of study. Thing is, everything I’ve learned from those days is completely outdated. I hated Flash (maybe because I’m somewhat impatient) and now HTML5 Canvas and HTML5 animations are in LOL. n’D
In terms of CSS frameworks, Bootstrap is the most popular. But I personally prefer Zurb Foundation and Materialize. I’m also looking into PureCSS and Skeleton too.
Never dabbled in web design. I am terrible in learning languages! I can barely manage the English language XD Still, that’s impressive what you did in the month of July.
Hah, I had my first website on Geocities. Those were the days 😀
A lot has happened in the world of web design/development, and it’s still evolving so fast with new techniques coming out all the time. It can definitely be overwhelming sometimes, even for those who work in the industry. But don’t get too stressed out over it, you don’t have to learn everything right away.
It’s great that you’re getting into web design again and the class sound great. You’re such a talented illustrator and you’ll make a great web designer too! 🙂
Web design has definitely become more complicated with mobile and retina! Sometimes I miss the old days when I was coding terrible Anime layouts, haha. In the beginning, I was stubborn and didn’t code for mobile, but now I definitely feel I have to include it. That’s great that you’re learning a lot from your Interactive Design for Web class! I hope you’ll share your project later!
Yay, I’m glad your cold is gone! That must have been annoying to have it lingering that long!
Haha, all I do is dabble in website design…or tweak themes. If I do more than that, it is never shown to the public. As for what I did in July, well…my Mom fell and broke her left femur, and so we’ve dealt with that. She was in the hospital for a week and rehabilitation for two, coming home on July 31st. As for August, I’m moving to a new domain, dealing with everything to do with Mom’s broken femur, bingeing Gossip Girl on Netflix, and looking forward to the solar eclipse on the 21st.
I’m happy to hear that your cold is finally gone and glad to hear that you’re learning a lot from your Interactive Design class.
Ahhh I am excited for you to take Interaction for Web! Back when I was in school web design was so new that it was the “supplement” to print design and we freely designed whatever we wanted. But then in the working world all modern companies use wireframes and frameworks, and especially flow charts to create better experiences for the user. I find that part of the work super important and interesting to creating the best visuals! Good luck in your class, it will be wonderful!
Also, glad your cold is better! I was also sick in June and July with a nagging cough due to cold dry weather. It feels so good to have beaten it!
I nominated you for an Liebster award! http://entrial-tales.com/liebster-award-again/
Ah nice choice of degree! Interactive design is in demand right now, and I feel the demand for even more interactivity will grow further with time!
Hope you are OK after the bout of cold!
My first website was on Geocities too!
I remember many websites back then that consisted of tons of animations and table layouts and frames inside frames inside frames… D:
Good luck with everything you are doing! I hope August is going well for you! =)
Ahhh, the good ol’ day of website designing, where things were a lot simpler. I miss that for sure. Now I am far behind and know I cannot catch up, but that’s okay XD That’s why I’ll pay someone to come up with the design and codes now ^^;;
So glad to hear your cold is gone now! Being sick is never a good feeling!
Oh boy, the days of Geocities. Some days, I definitely miss those times. I took a brief break from web design for college and work stuff, and now that I’m back, things have changed so much! Sometimes I feel like I never even did web design to begin with, hah.
Those links you included look really awesome. Definitely going to bookmark them and go back and read them 🙂
I kind of went on an unintentional hiatus the past couple of months. 😞 I love blogging but sometimes other things in life get in the way. It was nice to hear that you were doing so well at school and that you just had other things going on. 🙂
Luke Wroblewski is great – I know a lot of other designers and developers that have done some great presentations on responsive web design (Brad Frost and Ethan Marcotte, father of RWD himself haha). When I first heard of the term and everything changed for me, it was pretty scary. I felt that I had to relearn everything and I even worried for my friends who were still in the process of learning HTML and CSS. Their world just got harder 😦 But when you think about it, before we made anything fixed width, everything was responsive and it just fit in the screen we put it in. 😆 With that said, I think that now that I’ve learned here and there – it’s a lot easier than it felt like at the time. 😅
I am glad to hear you are feeling better from your cold ❤️ Those are never fun! I have not gotten a cold this year yet, I think I got lucky this time, after I got a recurring cold last year!