New Year’s Resolution

This is a tough one this year! Of course there’s loose weight and don’t spend so much but they are always present goals! I need to focus on marketing so I can sale my work! I’m already nervous! A group of us are starting The Carter Building Art Center, Studio 4, to have a space to teach classes. It promises to be a very exciting adventure. We got the space in December and have spent this week painting and getting it ready for classes beginning mid-January. Once we got the walls white, the space seemed to grow and glow. The utility sink looks much nicer and the shelves are neat and ready for supplies. The brown paint for the floor looked like chocolate! I bought a new door with glass panes to the floor and the guys are sanding and painting it today. We get to hang it this weekend and move furniture in. We got great deals on chairs and some amazing folding tables for $9.99 each. Not sure what we are going to do about easels but it’s looking good so far!

 

I spent my morning going through free magazines and newspapers looking for places to advertise and calendars that are free. I found some great opportunities for us and Glenwood South along with some online places. Next step is collecting prices and procedures for submission. I’ve got to pull together an email list which feels like torture, set up a sales site connection for my website, and start using Facebook. Facebook scares me, I don’t know what to put on there. I’m a rather private person and the thought of having my info being broadcast is intimidating, I guess that’s why marketing is so hard for me. So while I have a break in my web design work, I need to jump in and get started!

 

The GNSI conference website went live this week so check it out. http://www.gnsi.science-art.com/2011WA/index.html

I’m really please with how it’s looking.

CSS tactics

I have been engrossed in web design for the last 2 months and I am discovering that you can do most anything if you learn CSS. I have 7 books that are solely CSS, I’ve devoured them, taking an absurd amount of notes and there is still so much to learn! My 2 favorites are {speaking in styles} Fundamentals of CSS for Web Design by Jason Cranford Teague and CSS the Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland. {speaking in styles} teaches CSS like a language (foreign not programming) with syntax, semantics and vocabulary. These are the 3 sections that I am constantly referring to since I can never remember how to write in-line CSS, I get it confused with the syntax of HTML. The rest of the book puts CSS in context with web design and once you’ve read it, you’re pretty much done with that part. Most CSS books provide you with the same information so why this one? I like the way they list a term or CSS objective on the left side and present examples on the right side. With each item having a 2 page spread, it’s easy to use, there is a lot of white space so I’m not overwhelmed and searching for what I want in a sea of text. It’s a great introductory book.

CSS the Missing Manual is a workhorse! The text is easy to read and follow. I’ve read most of the book twice, once cover to cover and now project by project. I struggle with the index in most of the technical books, I don’t call things by the same name. I do use this index some but I find it much easier to look in the table of contents. I have just spent 2 days setting up a simple interactive map, it was so easy to design in Photoshop! But Dreamweaver was wearing me out! I finally pulled out the missing manual and started with basic layouts using floats and positioning. As I found bits and pieces of my puzzle examined, I was referred back to the chapter on background images.  Several hours later, I got the first block in my map laid out! The Photoshop map is basically 2 columns (below) while the Dreamweaver version is 3 columns with a nested column in the middle. The street lines are made up of 2 background images; it’s still going to be a challenge to figure out the best way to do the half street near the bottom!

 

The other site that I have been working on has been equally educational. I have created a collage that has  images appear when you roll over the photographs. It’s a simple concept and you see it regularly but…

Once the site is up and running, I will post the address so you can play.