Animated Gif

This is the sandal flower that will be animated in my banner ad:













The animation will be each of the individual flip fliops appearing to for a full flower.

Pop Up Window Video

It took me a really long time to find a video that was Quicktime, was of good quality, and at least somewhat applied to my site. Here is the one I found and it works pretty well with my site.

Nussbaum Review #2

This time I decided to review a Nussbaum post on How to Educate a Designer. As a student in design and someone who is graduating in the next year, it is opbviously a concern of mine to see what the thoughts are on educating desginers. As Nussbaum mentions, educating designers is a relatively new process and they're still working it out. It was interesting to read how their looking into educating desginers on how to think different and how different countries, such as Japan, educate their designers even differently than that.

Core 77 Review

So Core 77 is definitely a website with a lot to offer, but a little challenging to navigate. There seems to be some mcuh to look at all the time, you would have to constantly be checking back in order to get updated on everything. So the fist blog title that I could fully comprehend and caught my interest was on Concrete Tableware (4/30/08). Although it doesn;t have a ton to do with web design, or even the design I'm necessarily looking inot, it was definitely something that caught my eye. It shouws how innovative design are, and need to be, in order to come up with new idea that will be orginal, effective and make use of an resource not tapped into yet.
I was also intrigued that the blog article imeediately following this one was on an Art Exhibition; and the one even after that was one a new furniture manufacturing facility. Now as much as I understand the chronological purpose of a blog, it was a little overwhelming to have to jump through topic that weren't completely displayed on the page and had almost nothing to do with eachother except they were about design. Anyway, the art exhibition was for the artist Ettore Sottsass and I would have really likeed to go see it, given more time. It sounded like she was featuring many interesting design pieces, furniture and others, that would be something that would only enhance my design education. Thus I have decided that, although schoolwork is important and I should do well in it, I need to focus more on whats going on in the outside world of design as to better my prepare and educate myself.

Final Homepage Redesign

I finally finished my redesign of Zappos.com. It took me a long time to really get something down that I liked, but overall I'm okay with it. I think I could have maybe gone in a different direction an been happier, but overall this was a learning experience so at least now I can learn the processes to finish it! Here is the site in its "off" state:

NM II Paper Research

Avenue A | Razorfish
Background
1. an "interactive services firm "
helps companies use internet to better their marketing and thus their business
2. resources = "data, insight-driven design, leading technologies and rigorous optimization"
3. created July 24, 2004 from a merge between:
-Razorfish which was "the largest interactive marketing and technology services firm" and
-Avenue A which was "the largest buyer of online media and search"
4. Clark Kokich = current CEO ("Razorfish's experienced leadership team is composed of senior-level executives in business development, advertising, direct-response marketing, technology consulting, and finance.")

Work
1. well known customers = visa, best buy, dell, ralph lauen, red bull, toyota, nike, microsoft, etc, etc, etc
2. Specific example company case study breakdowns, including challenges posed, how the company solved said challenge, and the impact it had for the company: Red Bull, Visa, Carnival
2. customer example work: Toyota
Pringles
JCPenney
4. 2008 involvement: Internet Advertising Competition, RxClub Awards, AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs,AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs, AdWeek's Top 5 Digital Design Blogs, Crain's NY Top Consultants, Inspire Awards

Creative Perspective
1. main goal is using their tools and resources to bring their client closer to their audience
2. philosophy = Customer Experience Journey, which consists of 6 sub philosophys:

1. The Internet is essential. 2. Channels must be integrated. 3. Understanding is key to success..

4. Users rule. 5. Creativity and technology must work together. 6. There is always room for improvement.

2. customer process:
-campaigns or sites reflect the knowledge accumulated on company's target audience.
-translate brand online using a "comprehensive team of media planners and buyers, search specialists, designers, rich interface developers, information architects and content strategists"

I'm a Blogger??? (Sam Godin Blog Review)

So one of the first posts I saw on Seth Godin's blog was titled "Where to Begin?" (posted on 3/31/08) and was all about being a blogger. Until class this semester I had not really been exposed to blogging since the inception of "LiveJournal" back when I was in like 9th grade. So of course I was interested in Seth's post about how bloggers tend to think, or at least, how he, as a blogger, tends to think. He explains how there is a dichotomy between loyal blog readers who may have kept up on every post for the past several years, and those "first-timers" who have just happened upon a blog for the first time. With this dichotomy comes the question of who do you write for?... Something quick and new for the loyal or something with history and depth for the first-timer. Reading this post got me thinking that there must be ever more levels and types of people to impress. For example, the "first-timer" could be someone like myself, discovering the world of blogging for literally the first time, or it could be a seasoned blogger who just happened upon one particular blog for the first time. Or it could be someone who followed one blog religiously, but then got a promotion, or a significant other, or something equally time consuming, thus causing them to miss a few months or more of blogging and now what kind of blog they're returning too. The millions of blogs and millions of people out there provide an endless supply of every kind of blogger.
So since this topic interested me I looked at another post, titled Write Like a Blogger (4/7/08), in which Seth gives 9 basic steps on how to successfully write a blog. Again, I was intrigued that there was actually a process to writing a blog, let alone one that someone thought to give instructions. On the other hand, with the amount of blogs out there, a good amount are definitely not written well. Seth brought up several good points, that although sometimes seemed obvious and basic, were well thought out and would contribute the success of one's blog overall. So from all of this reading and writing on, in, and about blogs I realized that I too am now a blogger. And despite the fact that this may be a short lived venture for class, I hav definitely rediscovered the world of bloggers and am now equipped to properly visit, rate, an enjoy any blog.