Anne and Jim Learn Web Design

February 23, 2009

Caught between the angle brackets and a hard place.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Anne @ 9:38 AM

Another week, another chapter—squeezed in between area design lectures/programs, photography exhibits, family things, and of course our print design work. We both have busy lives, and we both agreed that our commitment to do this together is what’s keeping us on schedule. That, and we were able to have our vid chat before The Oscars last night. Whew.

I suppose it’s on par with knowing the difference between font, typeface, type style, and type family, but we’re having trouble keeping track of the new terminology. Tags, content, elements, attributes… I guess it’ll come with practice. Jim already uses the href attribute in Flickr. It’s all new to me since WordPress has a button to press to make something a clickable link. 

The crossword puzzle at the end of each chapter is quirky. It’s not very complex in its structure, and the clues are sometimes a stretch. Jim said he cheats if he doesn’t know the answer. I go back and look through the chapter to see if I can’t figure it out before resorting to peaking at the answers. So for me, it’s a good way to review the lessons.

The coolest thing is that on the way home from church yesterday morning, my 13-year-old stepson saw the book in my purse and wanted to borrow it. I said it was a workbook and we’d buy him his own if he wanted to learn web design. Did he? “Yes.”

February 16, 2009

Chapter 1: Done. And done.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 5:11 PM
Tags: , ,

In fact, I should add one more “Done” in there since our friend Gerette in Ohio has jumped on board our web-wagon. A big welcome to her.

So, Chapter 1: “Getting to know HTML” is history, and—pesky printing details aside—we’re excited to have gotten underway. We liked the writing style and appreciate the repetition used in the exercises to really drive the instructions home. The authors emphasize that this book is not simply about showing us how to do these things, but about teaching us. And even though it’s still early in our journey I’m confident it will live up to its promise.

I was happy to discover that some of the HTML basics they go over were not totally foreign to me. I took a class in Dreamweaver about 9 years ago (and as I write this I can’t believe it’s been that long!), and I already use some basic HTML code in my descriptions and comments on Flickr.

The information definitely stayed true to the chapter’s title, and I definitely got to know HTML a bit better. But at the same time I enjoyed that we did not start out as total strangers. And already, I’m starting to think that the web might not be all that scary.

February 15, 2009

Those Pesky Print Details

Filed under: print,typography — Anne @ 6:24 PM

Thanks, everyone, for the support in our endeavor. It has begun. 

Our plan: Chapter 1 by this afternoon. Jim is going to do a write-up, but I wanted to make a couple of comments. This is going to be a great book for learning HTML, CSS, and XHTML, but…

I can’t help it — it bothered me that the text was written with two spaces after the periods. It should have been changed/fixed in the text formatting of the book. This convention is especially troublesome where Helvetica Condensed is used, as it creates big white holes in the texture of the text. 

And, most of the color images in the book are too dark. There should have been more ink compensation for the dot gain on uncoated paper.

Chapter 2 by next Sunday.

Typeset text should have only one space after punctuation such as periods and colons.

Typeset text should have only one space after punctuation such as periods and colons.

February 6, 2009

Two print designers walk into a bar…

Filed under: attitude — Anne @ 3:19 AM

Today is a milestone day in my 17-year design career. A friend, and fellow print designer, and I have (finally) decided we are going to learn web design. Okay, maybe that sounds anticlimactic, but for us it’s a bit of a big deal. Because the two of us have been print designers for almost half our lives. We revel in paper, ink, and InDesign.

For the past year or more, we’ve hemmed and hawed about not knowing any (me) or much (him) web stuff.

The inspiration that put us over the top was this. And we’re starting with this book: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML . I ordered mine today. I hope Jim did, too. We talked about and decided to do this together. Like book buddies, or a book club of two, so we can keep each other accountable and encourage each other. 

I thought it would be interesting to document the process. And maybe it will help us to keep at it. A bit of cyber peer pressure if you will. Jim doesn’t know about the blog yet, but I’m hoping he’ll write some posts as well. (BTW, this is my first blog, so I’ll be figuring that out as well.)

Wish us luck?

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