Finding Resources

[foxfirefey]

Class Notes

Class has still been pretty quiet on the CSS learning front, but it's time to move on.

You can always look at the syllabus to see where we are. Our previous class was the second part of the lesson HTML and CSS overview; Examining with browser developer tools. Next week, we will review the foundation of core2 layouts.

Lesson Readings

So, this week I want you to find some resources you might want to use for your layout. There's a list started here:

Style Making Resources

Feel free to suggest your favorites--for instance, I'm not sure what the landscape of image hosting is currently like since I have my own webhost.

Exercises

I want you to think about the following:

• The color scheme for your layout. You'll need foregrounds (for text), backgrounds, and accent colors for things like links. If you are making an S2 layout, I recommend two sets of color schemes: one dark on light and one light on dark, to give you the best base to work from.
• Graphics you might want to use--backgrounds, accents, etc
• The positioning of layout elements you want to aim for--sidebars, no sidebars? What's in the header?

I totally recommend you chatter in comments about things you're thinking about and what you find that you like, along with giving your favorite resource recommendations.

Comments

[liv]

Colourscheme: I want to fix up my current layout so that it actually matches my background image, rather than just being vaguely dark red and dark green. Of course, having deliberately dimmed the colours of my image so that it wouldn't dominate the page too much, I now can't find the original anywhere on the internet *sigh* But I think the actual journal colours would need to be a bit more intense than what's in my picture, because otherwise there won't be enough contrast to make it readable. Something like this palette, maybe?

Graphics: I don't want to go overboard with the graphics but I keep trying to make journal layouts where the entries themselves are in a decorated frame. This is a bit difficult because obviously entries can vary in height and width. It may be that I need something with a fairly small repeat unit to achieve this? If I could make my entries look something like this illustration that would be ultimately awesome. As in, title in the top semicircle, metadata and links where the address is in that example, and main body text in the large bit in the middle.

Anyway, I'm still working on poking around for graphics, it doesn't absolutely have to be Kate Greenaway but something a bit nostalgic from the turn of the 20^th century, but not excessively floral / sentimental 19^th century stuff. NB Kate Greenaway's original illustrations are out of copyright, but the particular scans of them I've linked to may not be; I am not pernickety about that but the graphics may not be suitable for use as a public layout.

Positioning: to avoid making the page too busy I should probably get rid of the sidebars and move everything to the footer.