Mark's blog post about the wedding:
Slightly Off the Mark: A Quick "I Do" ... and the Real Wedding
I'll make my own blog post about it, later, when my to-do list isn't a mile long. H is is probably wittier than mine would be, anyway - he does get paid for his columns, after all. For now... I'll be writing a term paper and working on the wedding registry (I don't know what's more draining: scholarly research or comparing appliances)!
Friday, March 16, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Engaging Viewers in Corporate Web Content
Chapter 6 of Kilian's Writing for the Web talks about writing web content for corporate websites. While a bit dry, this chapter is useful because if you get hired to write web content, it's probably going to be for a business. Most businesses, especially small or single-persona ones (like an author/artist/crafter), will require less rigidity than corporate websites, but the principles are the same.
Kilian's main point is that you can't just throw ad copy at website viewers and expect them to get anything out of it, come back to the website, or care. People don't like to be harassed with ads online any more than they like it in person, and if the website only tries to sell the product, it's just a big ad. You need content that engages the reader, anticipates and answers questions, and gives material that the reader seeks or finds interesting - and to provide enough information for people to buy the product or use the company.
Here's pretty good example: The company site for Pierce, a fire apparatus company. They don't just have a list of trucks you can buy - they have behind-the-scenes webisodes about how the trucks are constructed, community information, social media integration, etc. The website is well organized and easily interacted with. I don't really like the surprise fire truck, but it's definitely interesting.
I've found, in my ridiculous amount of time spent browsing the web for no apparent reason, that the biggest mistake people make with corporate/business websites is assuming that all their viewers are morons. "I'll just make it so they can't see anything else until they watch the infomercial. Then they'll definitely want to buy our Widgets!" Or, they'll laugh and close the window after 10 seconds, and assume your company is a hack job desperate to make sales.
A good way to make corporate or business websites not fall flat is to make them interactive. You can easily integrate sharing with AddThis (which adds a button for just about everywhere you can share content), add comment forms so readers can share their opinions, allow reviews of products, feature users of your product, add a search bar so users can easily find what they're looking for, add contests or giveaways, etc. Many websites are integrating frequent user perks and rankings. For example, JINX, a gamer clothing company, lets users 'level up' by interacting on the website and earn 'gold' they can use for discounts on products.
Kilian's main point is that you can't just throw ad copy at website viewers and expect them to get anything out of it, come back to the website, or care. People don't like to be harassed with ads online any more than they like it in person, and if the website only tries to sell the product, it's just a big ad. You need content that engages the reader, anticipates and answers questions, and gives material that the reader seeks or finds interesting - and to provide enough information for people to buy the product or use the company.
Here's pretty good example: The company site for Pierce, a fire apparatus company. They don't just have a list of trucks you can buy - they have behind-the-scenes webisodes about how the trucks are constructed, community information, social media integration, etc. The website is well organized and easily interacted with. I don't really like the surprise fire truck, but it's definitely interesting.
I've found, in my ridiculous amount of time spent browsing the web for no apparent reason, that the biggest mistake people make with corporate/business websites is assuming that all their viewers are morons. "I'll just make it so they can't see anything else until they watch the infomercial. Then they'll definitely want to buy our Widgets!" Or, they'll laugh and close the window after 10 seconds, and assume your company is a hack job desperate to make sales.
A good way to make corporate or business websites not fall flat is to make them interactive. You can easily integrate sharing with AddThis (which adds a button for just about everywhere you can share content), add comment forms so readers can share their opinions, allow reviews of products, feature users of your product, add a search bar so users can easily find what they're looking for, add contests or giveaways, etc. Many websites are integrating frequent user perks and rankings. For example, JINX, a gamer clothing company, lets users 'level up' by interacting on the website and earn 'gold' they can use for discounts on products.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Type
Chapter 8 of White Space is Not Your Enemy deals with type. We've talked about different fonts quite a bit, but this chapter goes more in depth. It explains glyphs, the parts of a font, types and characteristics, and when to use which type of font. To go deeper, it even gets into kerning, leading, tracking, swash alternatives, ligatures, and typesetting. If you've ever been formatting some text for a project and realized it was almost but not quite right, those are things you need to learn to make the tweaks to your copy that will perfect it. You'd be surprised how much additional spacing between letters, a few alternates, and better leading can improve readability in layouts and papers.
Another good bit of advice is to avoid overly used fonts. Just as you don't want the same design or content as everyone else, you don't want the same font for your headers or logos that everyone else is using. (This doesn't imply to invisible fonts for copy, such as Arial.) For example, this font is everywhere. (No, really.)
If you're in need of some more good fonts, I suggest DaFont.com. It has tons of fonts that can easily be sorted, searched and downloaded, and includes the licensing information. If you want to sell your work some day, pay attention to those licenses. Some font makers license their work only for private/personal use, some don't care what you use it for, some only want credit, and some want a payment if you use the font for a commercial purpose. It's usually pretty cheap... and if you're going to make your buck using their work, they deserve the $10 for the work they put in the obviously good font.
Another good bit of advice is to avoid overly used fonts. Just as you don't want the same design or content as everyone else, you don't want the same font for your headers or logos that everyone else is using. (This doesn't imply to invisible fonts for copy, such as Arial.) For example, this font is everywhere. (No, really.)
If you're in need of some more good fonts, I suggest DaFont.com. It has tons of fonts that can easily be sorted, searched and downloaded, and includes the licensing information. If you want to sell your work some day, pay attention to those licenses. Some font makers license their work only for private/personal use, some don't care what you use it for, some only want credit, and some want a payment if you use the font for a commercial purpose. It's usually pretty cheap... and if you're going to make your buck using their work, they deserve the $10 for the work they put in the obviously good font.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Layouts
Chapter 7 of White Space is Not Your Enemy deals with layouts for the web. It includes layout design concepts and examples to make your website not only look good, but also deliver content in the clearest, most impactful way. It also includes tips about type, and do's and don'ts for images (and multiple images).
The chapter briefly mentions stand-in text, which can be used when you need to make a layout but may not yet have the copy. I've used this Lorem Ipsum generator, which lets you specify how much text and what kind of formatting you need.
For the rule of thirds, don't forget that if you're using Photoshop you can bring up a handy thirds grid for your images. While that doesn't really help with the overall layout, making each piece effective on its own is important, too - 'off' photos or graphics an otherwise well-designed layout can ruin it.
Once you get the layout idea for your website drafted, keep in mind that not everyone will see it like you do. Different browsers and monitors render colors, borders, alignment, and all kinds of things differently. Plus, users can adjust the brightness, contrast, and screen resolution on their computers, which also makes a difference. While your layout can't look perfect everywhere, make sure it's acceptable for most. It should look good in different sizes, and your sidebar shouldn't go completely haywire in one browser.
The chapter briefly mentions stand-in text, which can be used when you need to make a layout but may not yet have the copy. I've used this Lorem Ipsum generator, which lets you specify how much text and what kind of formatting you need.
For the rule of thirds, don't forget that if you're using Photoshop you can bring up a handy thirds grid for your images. While that doesn't really help with the overall layout, making each piece effective on its own is important, too - 'off' photos or graphics an otherwise well-designed layout can ruin it.
Once you get the layout idea for your website drafted, keep in mind that not everyone will see it like you do. Different browsers and monitors render colors, borders, alignment, and all kinds of things differently. Plus, users can adjust the brightness, contrast, and screen resolution on their computers, which also makes a difference. While your layout can't look perfect everywhere, make sure it's acceptable for most. It should look good in different sizes, and your sidebar shouldn't go completely haywire in one browser.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Chapter 14 of Golombisky & Hagen's White Space is Not Your Enemy is absolutely full of great information for those who want to create a website the right way. It covers basic design elements for the web; points out problem areas that most people don't think about like color shift, font scaling, and fixed vs. fluid layouts on different monitor sizes; and discusses the purpose of websites and how to choose if a domain is right for your project versus a web log or social media profile.
For me, this information wasn't new. However, I think it would be a very useful tool for anyone starting a website. Most people, even those who use the Internet regularly, don't understand what really goes into creating your own website from scratch; the diagrams and paragraphs explaining the relationship between your computer, your domain name, and your live website spell things out well.
Most of the information in the design sections seems trivial at best, common sense at worst - but it's not. People make horribly ugly, completely unnavigable, badly organized, utterly pointless websites all the frakking time. Since our generation has grown up with the Internet, we think we know best and we're not going to pay someone to do it for us or buy a book to self-teach. Couple that with the fact that most of the time when we see a boring or badly designed website, we just back out of it instead of leaving feedback, and you can see why it's so easy for crummy sites to exist.
This isn't just a web problem. This weekend, I went to a pizza place, and perused the rest of the menu while waiting for my order. They had multiple errors, badly written sentences, and a poorly designed logo. I just shook my head and sighed - how are writers and graphic designers ever supposed to get jobs, if people don't feel the quality of things like menus is important enough to pay for? The pizza was absolutely fantastic, but badly done print materials - or websites - can leave people with little faith about your company.
Since fonts are a big part of this chapter, check out this link. It contains helpful information on typography and design in the form of infographics - and as much as I love words, I definitely appreciate the not-wordy-get-to-the-point-plus-!pictures! awesomeness of infographics. (Web Authoring students: Notice how some of the principles we learned in class are included, like how the eye travels across a page.)
For me, this information wasn't new. However, I think it would be a very useful tool for anyone starting a website. Most people, even those who use the Internet regularly, don't understand what really goes into creating your own website from scratch; the diagrams and paragraphs explaining the relationship between your computer, your domain name, and your live website spell things out well.
Most of the information in the design sections seems trivial at best, common sense at worst - but it's not. People make horribly ugly, completely unnavigable, badly organized, utterly pointless websites all the frakking time. Since our generation has grown up with the Internet, we think we know best and we're not going to pay someone to do it for us or buy a book to self-teach. Couple that with the fact that most of the time when we see a boring or badly designed website, we just back out of it instead of leaving feedback, and you can see why it's so easy for crummy sites to exist.
This isn't just a web problem. This weekend, I went to a pizza place, and perused the rest of the menu while waiting for my order. They had multiple errors, badly written sentences, and a poorly designed logo. I just shook my head and sighed - how are writers and graphic designers ever supposed to get jobs, if people don't feel the quality of things like menus is important enough to pay for? The pizza was absolutely fantastic, but badly done print materials - or websites - can leave people with little faith about your company.
Since fonts are a big part of this chapter, check out this link. It contains helpful information on typography and design in the form of infographics - and as much as I love words, I definitely appreciate the not-wordy-get-to-the-point-plus-!pictures! awesomeness of infographics. (Web Authoring students: Notice how some of the principles we learned in class are included, like how the eye travels across a page.)
Monday, February 13, 2012
Editing Webtext
Editing webtext is like editing poetry. Space is essential, so every word has to hold its own and be the best choice.
Kilian makes some fair points and has some nice lists in chapter five of Writing for the Web. I'll share some pointers of my own.
To edit your text, move it into a new word processing document. Swap the font out and mess with the layout. Then let it sit. Don't look at or think about it for a while, and it'll be fresh and new when you come back to it (and see all your mistakes!). Kilian suggests printing it out, double spacing, increasing the font size, and changing the font. However, I don't see a reason to have to retype all those changes and waste paper. Then again, I grew up using computers so I'm more comfortable editing on screens.
A large section of the chapter lists abbreviations and terms for web writing. My advice: if you have to look it up, don't use it. If English is your second language, check out resources online or get a hard copy text to refer to. This is a nice start and easy skim list, but I'm not really sure how useful it is in the long run. Depending on your major and the purpose of your website, most of the stuff on this list you'll never run into - and you could easily do a websearch for it if you did.
Kilian also gives some advice that can be boiled down to the following: don't be an offensive jerk, don't ramble on with unnecessary junk, watch out for confusion from dialect/terminology if you have a global audience, and hyphenate to avoid confusion if you must.
Just don't sacrifice your style for the sake of appealing to a larger audience. Most websites get little traffic. Find your niche and write what your fans want. If you get famous, then you can think about appealing to huge audiences... but realistically, you probably won't get so much traffic that you have to worry about it. Just be an accessible, not-outrageously-offensive version of yourself.
Kilian makes some fair points and has some nice lists in chapter five of Writing for the Web. I'll share some pointers of my own.
To edit your text, move it into a new word processing document. Swap the font out and mess with the layout. Then let it sit. Don't look at or think about it for a while, and it'll be fresh and new when you come back to it (and see all your mistakes!). Kilian suggests printing it out, double spacing, increasing the font size, and changing the font. However, I don't see a reason to have to retype all those changes and waste paper. Then again, I grew up using computers so I'm more comfortable editing on screens.
A large section of the chapter lists abbreviations and terms for web writing. My advice: if you have to look it up, don't use it. If English is your second language, check out resources online or get a hard copy text to refer to. This is a nice start and easy skim list, but I'm not really sure how useful it is in the long run. Depending on your major and the purpose of your website, most of the stuff on this list you'll never run into - and you could easily do a websearch for it if you did.
Kilian also gives some advice that can be boiled down to the following: don't be an offensive jerk, don't ramble on with unnecessary junk, watch out for confusion from dialect/terminology if you have a global audience, and hyphenate to avoid confusion if you must.
Just don't sacrifice your style for the sake of appealing to a larger audience. Most websites get little traffic. Find your niche and write what your fans want. If you get famous, then you can think about appealing to huge audiences... but realistically, you probably won't get so much traffic that you have to worry about it. Just be an accessible, not-outrageously-offensive version of yourself.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Website Draft & Wix Workarounds
It's pretty bare bones right now, but I've got the skeleton for it. I started with a blank template instead of one of the Wix ones and added on from there. Also, most of the pictures there not the ones that will be in the final cut, I just needed enough to make sure the flash widgets worked!
www.wix.com/hunter_wedding/wedding
On another note, you can change your email and username on Wix by going to the My Account page and then clicking on Settings. I didn't find this out until after I'd already created everything, of course. I'll probably change stuff around later; if I do, I'll edit this post to have the correct URL.
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