In the begining there was......CSS

Monday was, I feel, a very productive day for myself. As usual Steve began with a lecture, but no normal lecture, this was my first CSS lecture, something I've been looking forward to since I started the course.

It spoke of the basics, which included what not to do with CSS e.g. don’t put it directly into a web page; put all the CSS code into one file. Steve also warned the class of the strange things that Dreamweaver, importing CSS and JavaScript without you knowing.

In the second half of the tutorial, Steve told us how the form elements work and how and where to place them properly on the page.

He also explained how each one should be used, like for instance, the check boxes should not be already checked, because this would give the impression of arrogance making the user think that they have to do check the box, they would prefer to opt in to a offer, not opt out.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon I continued with my A3 referral work. This is where it my day went down hill. I had almost completed A3 during last week and when I opened the files I realise that most of them had not been saved. I was extremely angry with myself, how could I have been so careless?

But throughout the afternoon I managed to get back on track and now all that needs doing is to and a few words in to a couple of paragraphs and spell check it again, just to make sure that there are no spelling mistakes this time.

I also had a tutorial session with John Munday half way through the afternoon. He went over what was left to do on A3, which I have mentioned isn’t a lot.

Today Steve started off with another Lecture on typography; I was shocked when I notice that most of it was mainly about spelling and grammar. It went over text layout, punctuation and the correct usage of hyphens.

In the second half of the morning I started up InDesign to continue with the Zuzana Licko presentation when suddenly Steve announced that it was time for one of the timed typography tasks. I was defiantly nervous about this one.

The task was to create a design for the cover of FontBook, I first began by sketching 5 designs out, this took, then I sketched a large draft for the design I had chosen, I showed Steve the design and he gave me the go ahead. I then I opened InDesign and created it.

I had to redo it twice because there were a few problems, one was a funny letter and the other was that for some reason it wouldn’t show the margin guides. Unfortunately I didn’t hit the deadline which I was upset about but thankfully it was just a test.

This afternoon was mainly based on getting more information of the typographer I was given. There was also a group seminar with Steve, which was based on A1 and how much work we had done for it, I have realised that I need to do a lot more work for it and this will be one of my tasks for this week.

My tasks for this week are:

* A1 – Obtain more inspiration and place in Sketchbook
* A3 – Complete A3
* A6 – Create the first draft of my Presentation