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I found the discussion in Visual Displays surrounding the comparative case studies to be extremely interesting. As historians we have hopefully become adept at forming arguments in a convincing and lucid manner. The discussion on verbal parallelism was a perfect example. Years of writing and reading have ingrained these techniques in our minds so deep that we usually don’t realize when we actually use them. Our challenge is first to breakdown the devices we use while constructing papers in order to fully understand what exactly we are doing. Once we have a firm command over this knowledge we can apply it to an entirely new field (for many of us at least) – that of two & three-dimensional design. How can we incorporate parallelism into our head banner for instance? Or how can we create a relationship both in terms of content and design?
One difficulty that currently gives me personally the most trouble is the use of color. As I have said before, I love contrast. I will admit it right now – I enjoyed the recently released movie 300, not for its dialogue (please), plot (there was a plot?), or historical accuracy (do I even need to comment on this?), but for the visual experience. I thought the synthesis of the visual and audio aspects of this film was superb. Yet this type of film would not work well in a romantic comedy. But how can we as infant designers create a synthesis between our content and design that is both appropriate and engaging. If I had an answer I wouldn’t continue to ask this question in my posts. Unfortunately for me, my site would look foolish if it were highly contrasted. This doesn’t mean that my color scheme can’t have colors that contrast, but whatever bright color (orange is currently favored) I decide upon must be used sparingly as highlighters not backgrounds.
Credit for this revelation is all due to this week’s reading Visual Displays. The concept of muted and homogenized secondary elements seems so obvious as to not even needing mention. However this goes back to breaking down techniques that are used so frequently that we are unable to understand why and how they work. If you refer to my typography site () you will notice that the majority of my colors are subdued or faded. While contrast exists between the brown type and yellowish-green background, there wasn’t any tension. The elements work well together, but almost too well in that they blend with one another. Since I didn’t have a large graphic or picture near the top, there wasn’t a clear path or at least points of interest that the eye automatically follows. This was why I placed thin, but bright, orange lines periodically near points on the page wanted the visitor to understand were important; the most obvious example being the line separating the nav menu and the main content.
As always please let me know if you think I’m full of it, or if my explanation makes sense. I probably speak for most people when I say that I cringe when I hear artists or designers speak about their own work. The work should stand alone, able to communicate clearly whatever argument or commentary the artist wishes to make without verbal aid. This is exactly what Visual Displays was addressing. However here statistical analysis and graphs take the place of a piece of art, or in our case a finely written work. As we have seen so far this semester, everything is ripe for redesign and improvement, even the most basic text. To date I feel this is the most important concept I have discovered in this course. I just hope I can master this skill by some point in the near future.
How often do web-based historians become so caught up in the intricacies of the structure and design that they neglect to fully examine the role of text on a page. As we well know, most historians are just becoming introduced to the world of New Media. We are forced to think of terms of audio, video, layout, and beauty. I don’t believe I am alone when I say that part of the allure of historical scholarship was the straightforward approach to material. There are books, you read them and then construct criticisms & arguments from them. At which point, others read your work and do the same. It is simple not only in the specific audience you tailor your writing style to, but also in format.
The paper format simply looks awful when you put it on screen (blogs excluding of course). It looks even worse to the modern scholar who knows all the possibilities that could occur on a webpage that are not being utilized. However the historian cannot create a page that resembles the History Channels, or CNN’s, which employs seemingly hundreds of colors and multiple focus points. The online publication is meant to be taken seriously as a legitimate piece of original scholarship. Thus historians are in somewhat of a bind. How to take advantage of the web while presenting the material in a serious manner? Simple steps can obviously be taken such as spell-checking and grammatical review. More importantly however I feel that the site must have a mostly minimalist presentation. Why? I argue for prevention against distraction.
First the minimalist design doesn’t distract from the content. Despite our leap into the digital world, these sites are for educational purposes. Obviously subject matter should be presented in an enjoyable way, as learning and brain function appears to be linked to happiness (see Donald Norman, Attractive Things Work Better. Look at week one). And perhaps those site directed towards K-12 should be a little more colorful and exciting. Yet at the same time there is a reason why advertisements, cell phones, and classmate gossip are all outlawed in classrooms. They are distracting. As adolescent riddling bottles continue fill, the ability to focus on one topic for an extended period of time becomes evermore crucial to academic development.
Now I am becoming distracted. Back to the sites. The benefits of a minimalist design for historical sites directed at adults and scholars are even more highlighted. Like it or not, academic work is presented in a particular format, and if digital publications wish to receive academic critique and praise they must conform to the analog style. The online historian has a fine line to tread in terms of design, which is why I believe simplicity is best. Stop worrying about design! Our goal should be first and foremost functionality. Historians are long practiced in the tedious process of flipping through sources while searching resources. Imagine (or remember) the joy felt by the scholar during the first encounter with the online keyword, title, author search function. Our job should be to aid the search. If the content is good and helpful, the publication will be able to stand on its own.
Now our only job is to make sure that our designs aren’t so bad that they ruin the content. To be continued…
Our professor explained on the first day that this class would cause us to bang our head against a wall numerous times a day. Initially I thought she was simply employing a scare tactic in order to dwindle the numbers of classmates. Sadly she was correct. From first glance, web-design seems like it should be fairly simple. The organization seemed rational and order, leaving me with the only difficulty in picking out the color and design scemes. It sounds like I’m picking out furiniture for a new home. How quaint!
If the scarcasm isn’t coming off strong enough to this point just let me know. I can always go back and edit this post (I love the internet). Little rules and settings are what can frustrate the novice designer. Let’s look at an example to demonstrate what I mean. I’m guessing that many people int he class had difficulty floating the image. Wyke-Smith makes it sound so easy. you basically break up a page into columns whereby you determine the sizes of the columns. So far so good. All elements total 100%, and the page looks nice. Yet I made the fatal flaw of neglecting to add my margins and borders before I completed the float. Thus sending my text on the right side tumbling down underneith the left float. Eventually I realized mymistake, but that was an hour later. I later realized that my issue was I have become so accustomed to powerpoint and other Microsoft product design rules, that I became pretty aggitated when I was forced to learn a new system. It was quick a reality check to how much I was a slave to Windows.
For this Abbott project I will need an efficient information (mostly articles) collection and acquisition system. In other words, similar to a library search system, an application that would allow me to tag articles or other resource materials as I encounter them with my own distinct terms. This system allows for multiple tags to be placed on each article hopefully avoiding nasty classification overlaps. This system would actually be an internal system for my personal use, not the public search engine needed for the website. Rather I want a quick way to organize my research materials, as the total number of articles will soon balloon to over 300.
Any ideas? Don’t worry about discount solutions, rather what are some of the best (and if expensive so be it) programs out there in the market?
