mfaulk20’s blog

Copyright laws are inevitable and a necessity when it comes to protecting your work. However, enforcing copyrights are extremely difficult, due to easy access to information and data. The world is now literally at our fingertips with the click of a button. If I wanted to, I emphasize “If I wanted to” lol; I could download movies, music, television shows and pictures with no consideration for the law. There is no cut and dry way to protect your work anymore. Therefore, I think that the concept of copyrighting is due for reinvention. How can we say that copyrights are the same as in the past when there is virtually no penalty for breaking them? We need to come up with some sort of way to make copyrights flexible. I cannot fathom how this concept would work, but it is an idea that could change the way that we share our media in the future.

The idea that internet is evolving into TV is not far fetched by any means. It is true that the internet is a one stop shop for all of your entertainment necessities. It includes movies, music videos, television shows, and any other media that a television would likely have. The great part is that all of this excitement is also accessible via mobile devices, such as the iPhone. With that said, I do not think that the internet will replace television. There are several reasons for this opinion: First of all, the television has been the staple of family households for centuries. TVs have brought families together in the living room to watch a movies, sitcoms, the nightly news, or whatever else may have you. It would take something truly remarkable and groundbreaking to relinquish the American tradition of sitting in from of a black cube for entertainment needs. Another hindrance to why the internet won’t replace television is due to the technical issues with the internet. Not everyone will have a T1 internet connection, with lightning fast download speeds. Therefore, it would be hard for someone with a slow dsl connection to enjoy their favorite show if it needs to buffer every 5 seconds. This will never be a limitation with television, which is why the TV is here to stay.

Flash and portfolio sites are one in the same…or at least one would seem to think so. Flash is the cutting edge tool to make any artistic vision possible, but the true question is “Is it really needed?” My answer to that question is yes and no. I think that creating a flash website is solely dependant upon what job position that you are looking to get. For example, if you are a graphic designer or advertisement artist, then a flash site would be a perfect way to showcase how successful or unsuccessful your work comes accross to the general public and elite designers alike. http://www.ohkamp.com/index.html and http://designforfun.com are examples of how this can be successful. Artists in these fields are more than likely going to be designing websites for their jobs, so I think a flashtastic site would exemplify their talents. On the other hand, I believe that most other positions don’t necessarily require a flash website. The work that you show on you site should be the most important aspect to you getting a job. For example, if your portfolio work is lackluster compared to an awesomelly flashtastic website, than that would bring you out in a negative light. This would mean that you spent more time on your website, where that time couldn’ve been spent working on the actual meat and potatoes of the portfolio. Also, html is really sturdy and does many things successfully, which would make it a route to choose when all else fails. I personally think that the work in your reel can make or break you, when it comes to getting a job, wheras a insanely designed flash site won’t.

Flashtastic eh!? I believe that flash is downright one of the most awesome methods to create and display a website. You can pull off all kinds of nifty tricks that would be impossible to do otherwise. However, my feeling about flash is that it shouldn’t be considered the “end all be all” of web design. A web designer is only as good as his talent will permit. Just because he or she is using flash doesn’t mean that their website will automatically become adored by everyone. In fact, I would much rather have a master at html display a beautifully designed html site, then to have a newbie flash designer display a underdeveloped flash site. Flash, CSS, and HTML are merely tools in the toolbelt of web designer. How that designer decides to use that tool is the most important part that determines how successful or unsuccessful their website turns out.

The web in your pocket is an idea that 10 years ago was probably thought to be impossible. However, in this day and age, surfing the web on your phone is an everyday event. In fact, some people rely soly on using mobile devices to view web pages. I believe that as a designer, this idea should be embraced instead of neglected. The 101 Cookbook website is a perfect example of how to address this issue. One site could be for viewing on computer monitors, while the other will be specifically small for mobile devices. As a student with a portfolio website, I don’t think this concept applies as much as someone with a business. My main focus is to showcase my work in a manner that will help me to get a job. With that said, I would rather have a perspective employer view my work as it was intended to be viewed: on a 1024×786 or higher resolution monitor. This way, they can truly appreciate the minute details that went into my demo reel, which they probably wouldn’t be able to see on a mobile device.

This week, I took some time to think about web typography and its usage. Some say that web is 90% text, however I bluntly disagree. In all of my years of surfing, chatting, and reading news on the web, I cannot recall a time when I was consciencly aware of either good or bad web typography. When I look at an internet site, I believe that the overall design aesthetic and graphical elements make or break the page. The text, on the other hand, is merely supportive material that makes the page meaningful in a semantical manner. In fact, web pages today seem to be overrun with…guess what?…Images. Cool imagery and great color schemes attract me to a web page moreso than the attention to spaces and margins in the paragraphs. In fact, if there was a page that was great in every way except for the typographical aspect, I would still be intersted in its visual nature. Inversely, a page that is hard on the eyes cannot be saved with beautiful typography. Of course, I’m not dicrediting the fact that web typography is important. However, I disagree with the quote that says web is 90% text.  The internet was primarily text in its early ages, but it has since evolved into much more. It is now divided between text, images, videos, music, and whatever else a designer can possibly come up with. Therefore, web pages should be viewed that way and not just as words on a background.

This week I took the time to view several websites and determine what resolution most people use. After surfing through my first 6 websites, I realized that the 1024 x 768 resolution was very common. However, I later realized that a few sites differed from the norm. For example, Craigslist.com has a resolution of 800 x 600 and Ebay.com has a resolution of 640 x 480. I tested all the sizes in both Firefox and Internet Explorer and they were identical in both browsers. One intersting side note is that Wikipedia.com was the only website I visited that dynamically changed resolution as I changed the browser size. For example, the paragraphs would compress if I decreased the browser size, and expand if I increased the browser size. All the other websites appeared to have a common aesthetic choice: they have the main information centered in the middle of the page, with a background that runs off on either side. It appears that this choice is for seamless use even if the hardware resolution in larger that the screen resolution. This could also meaningful because it is future proof. Any new hardware with higher resolution will still be compatible without having to constantly update the website. I do not have a PDA or iPhone so I couldn’t see how these sizes relate to other electronic medium. All in all, I learned that 1024 x 768 seems to be the widely accepted standard for website resolution, that is in terms of the technicality of web design. Aesthetically, most sites have a background that runs off on either side of centered data. All of these findings are things that I need to consider for myself and for my personal website.