Badge #8 | Domain Hosting

A screenshot of my website. It’s very simple, but it works for these purposes.

The world of domain name-purchasing and online hosting is a confusing one. I encountered many problems while trying to set up HannahDPruitt.com, ranging from bad host support, misleading costs, and just trying to get my site online. It was a very stressful and more costly experience than I would have liked it to be. Overall, however, the anxiety was worth it. The process of setting up your own website is a valuable experience, and I know next time it will be much easier.

Badge #7 | Cartography

A 3D printer constructing a model of a human figure as a technician observers. Getty images.

A piece of candy in a geometric design made by the ChefJet 3D printer. Wired.

3D printing is a burgeoning new industry in the technology sector. This three-dimensional mapping technology allows real objects to be “printed” in various materials from a digital blueprint, giving the user freedom to create virtually whatever they want — provided they have the resources and skill. Scientists and engineers have successfully printed everything from vegetarian chicken nuggets to grafting material for cancer patients. Though the average cost of a 3D printer is still $1000 on average and thus out of the price range of the average consumer, it is only a matter of time before this versatile new technology spreads to the everyday sector. This white paper will discuss 3D printing in more depth and examine the development, pros, and cons of this quickly-growing technology.

Badge #6 | Logo Maker

Memo
To: The Rossum Corporation
From: Hannah Pruitt
Date: May 14, 2014
Subject: The Rossum Corporation Logo

This logo was created for use by The Rossum Corporation. The Rossum Corporation is an industry leader, manufacturing the largest number of MRI machines in the world and has broken new ground in imprinting technology. The organization is best known for its development of dollhouses, which program “dolls” for clients at a steep price. The Rossum Corporation is a powerhouse of research, science, and wealth, and must command an intimidating presence. One of the best ways to make a company more recognizable and appealing is through a memorable and creative logo. As David Airey, author of Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities says, “The same visual identity seen time and again builds trust, and trust keeps customers coming back for more.” (Airey 2010) A powerful logo is then essential in maintaining the Rossum Corporation’s market dominance and brand loyalty in the field of imprinting and drug development.

The new logo for the Rossum Corporation. Click for full size.

The Rossum Corporation’s new logo is simple but instantly commands respect. It features a single letter “R” in the serif font Bentham contained in the white outline of a diamond. The background is a gradient of dark gray rectangles that gradually get darker and darker across the right side of the logo. The “R” for Rossum and the diamond outline both have a subtle drop shadow and bevel effect to give them the illusion of depth, adding graphic richness to the logo.

Badge #5 | Wireframe Wizard

A screenshot of the wireframe for the registration page. The page has input fields as well as sample text for instructions that the client could fill out.

Web wireframes are used to demonstrate what the basic outline of a website will look like in the early stages of the web design process. Using a stripped-down skeleton of a website allows designers to save time and effort and for clients to better understand what the final product will look like.

These wireframes depict a potential layout for URBAN-15’s Josiah Media Festival website. The Josiah Media Festival is a small film festival that URBAN-15 hosts in San Antonio. The website needed to be fairly small and easy to navigate for prospective filmmakers, and the registration form needed to be clearly accessible and simple to fill out.

These problems were addressed with a simple set of wireframes depicting a sample home page, registration form, and guideline page. The wireframes have consistent navigation but distinct content on each page, allowing the clients to conceptualize what the final product would look like while maintaining site-wide consistency.

A link to a .pdf of these wireframes and an explanation can be found here.

Badge #4 | JQuery Codecademy

A screenshot of my completed JQuery page on Codecademy.

JQuery is an interesting and stylish coding language meant to work with JavaScript and is mostly used to make websites more interactive and aesthetically appealing. It is a particularly handy language to have a functional knowledge of because it’s so simple and can do so much with so little. JQuery shares several elements in common with other programming languages – including HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and Scratch. Most notably it has the power to declare variables, reference and change the innerHTML, and otherwise dynamically affect content on the page. Particularly striking was how similar function declarations were to JavaScript – the syntax of the function followed by () and an open bracket is almost identical to JavaScript. This is likely because they are designed to work together.

Badge #3 | Minimalist Design

Minimalism is a design trend and school of thought that encourages the most simplistic design possible while still maintaining an appealing aesthetic. Cameron Chapman of Smashing Magazine describes it as “reducing a design to its most essential elements” — in essence, getting to the point (Chapman 2010). But that doesn’t mean that minimalist design can’t still be stylish and attractive. Minimalism can reduce clutter, improve readability or function, and streamline the design overall in ways that are still appealing.

Badge #2 | Pen Tool

With all of the intimidating hype surrounding the pen tool, it’s easy to understand why many users steer clear of it entirely. This often misunderstood tool is branded as a digital fountain pen, but it can be used in numerous other ways to create smooth, crisp lines and selections. It is essential in creating clean silhouettes and sharp outlines of selected material that would never be achievable through something like the lasso tool. Overall, it’s a tricky but incredibly versatile little tool that any Adobe user worth their salt should probably have a functional knowledge of.

Blog Assignment #4 | My Dream Computer

I have rotten luck with computers — they inexplicably crash, video input stops working, and keys fall off seemingly at random and with high frequency. This is the fourth laptop I’ve had since I started high school, so the road of new computer shopping is well-worn for me, though still a little bit scary. Such an expensive purchase is something you have to mull over very carefully, because unless you’re satisfied with what comes in the mail, you have to deal with the hassle of returning it or swapping out parts. I usually have to find a model I like, get five outside opinions, and mull over the computer for at least a week before I buy it. So for this assignment, I had to face this fear head on and just go for it, with a $1700 budget (for the record, I could spend much more than that on a computer. Oops)

Cooking with Friends, or the Dangers of Giving Intrusive Javascript to a Cannibal | Minisite #3

A screencap of the registration form on my website, which prompts users to fill out information to make an appointment with Hannibal. It’s not too late to press the back button!

This minisite was an enormous challenge for me. Despite all the practice with JavaScript in class — and even after this project — I still feel a little shaky about my programming skills. Nevertheless, with a little luck, a bunch of help,  and a lot of troubleshooting I was able to wrangle together Minisite #3. My website is Hannibal-themed, because what better way to demonstrate how potentially dangerous intrusive JavaScript can be than through a man who uses it to track down his victims? (Fridays at 9 PM Central on NBC!)

The JavaScript coding was a long, arduous, uphill battle throughout. I spent hours just trying to re-understand the syntax of things as simple as document.getElementById and the way variables are set up. Sometimes things just don’t stick, but you just have to keep at it until you get a grasp of the concept as best you can.

I did have a few specific problems that I’m proud I figured out. I had particular difficulty with trying to use conditional logic on elements in a drop-down selection list on the registration form. A major chunk of the ‘Commerce’ page revolves around what axiom a user picks from a drop-down menu to describe them best. The phrases are all plays-on-words of body parts, so if the user selects that they think they are “forward thinking,” the JavaScript squirrels that information away and presents it on the commerce page as a recipe for brains. I couldn’t get that particular section to work in the registration page, so I ended up referring to the option ID’s as strings on the commerce page, and it finally worked! Sometimes you just need to attack the problem from a different angle.

I also had a problem where the conditional logic of my radio buttons wasn’t working for hours. It was, of course, caused by the fact that I used curly braces instead of parentheses in a crucial block of text. I was glad it was an easy fix, but it’s amazing how much you can fret over such a stupid problem.

Overall I probably spent about 15 hours on this site and found it very difficult, but I’m very happy with my final product.

Javascript and the DOM | Reflections

A thrilling screencap of my planets website, with the additional changed message of “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” on the “blue planet” portion.

I’m excited to be finally starting Javascript in this class — aside from some navigation bar problems that are well-documented, I’m fairly comfortable with the basics in CSS & HTML, but I’m completely new to Javascript. These are uncharted waters for me, and I’m nervous but ready to learn. The chapter was daunting in length and scope, but ultimately pretty easy to parse. The structure of Javascript feels very similar to Actionscript, which helped me get more comfortable with the structure. It still feels a little weird — especially since I’m learning Python right now in Programming Logic, and all these slightly different coding languages can be hard to keep track of. But I’m sure that after a few hours of practicing the basics, I’ll be able to write it more confidently without flipping back through the book to make sure I have the right syntax.

One part of the homework confused me, however. It was on page 61, the “Secret Message” homework, where it asked you to “write the element each line of code selects, as well as the content of the element to reveal the secret meaning!” I was unclear on what “the element each line of code selects” referred to. I understood that the assignment was asking us to find the corresponding words in the DOM with the lines of code, but the first part of it confused me. I didn’t know if it wanted me to write down “E7” or “E12” etc., as well. That was the only real trouble I had with the assignment. Other than that I think that mastering (or at least being able to use) Javascript will come down to adequate practice and time!

You can see my planets website here. I hope I added my new message correctly — I just replaced the old Blue Planet text with something new when the page loads, just like the Green planet.