Back40Design
Week 6
Back40 does several different types of work, from print to web. Being a web intern I do only web stuff (and thank god, because I suck at art).
The web stuff includes custom projects from scratch, which I like. Amy sits down with the client, finds out what they like, and tries to turn it into a visually appealing web page. I say try, not because Amy sometimes misses, but that some clients are horrible at understanding what is visually appealing on a computer screen.
Other web stuff includes site conversions. That is done by taking an existing web site and turning it into one that can handle our custom CMS, Javelin. The first one I did was already converted, so my job was taking the content from the previous site and putting it into the new one. I'm not kidding when I say that they had 50 good pages of content. Why do I know this? I put all the content into a GoogleDoc, with a table of contents and "back to top" links, just so I could sort out the maze of information. But, then there's when you actually have to do the conversion.
Doing a conversion is relatively easy. You find the places where content was previously generated (even easier if there are already the previous tags there) and add Javelin's tags. But then, you have to style it. I have complained about the layout and lack of white space in the CSS. Now I'm complaining about the content. The naming scheme was actually not the worst I've ever seen, but it's in the top ten. For some reason, and I really have absolutely no idea why, it looked like it was done by a fifth grader. And, as a final note, I have never seen such disorder.
My stylesheet is a complete mess, but what I do have is a top-down system of organization. I start with the things highest on the page and go from there. Basically, I define all my tags first, then my id's-in order-and then my classes.
The stylesheet I was altering had some semblance of order, but...you know, I think an example would be better.
| Visible Spectrum of Light | ||
|---|---|---|
| Color | Spectrum | Frequency |
| Red | 620–750 nm | 400–484 THz |
| Green | 495–570 nm | 526–606 THz |
| Blue | 450–495 nm | 606–668 THz |
| Yellow | 570–590 nm | 508–526 THz |
| Violet | 380–450 nm | 668–789 THz |
| Orange | 590–620 nm | 484–508 THz |
The list is a complete over view of the visible light spectrum, but it's not in order. A better way would be this:
| Visible Spectrum of Light | ||
|---|---|---|
| Color | Spectrum | Frequency |
| Violet | 380–450 nm | 668–789 THz |
| Blue | 450–495 nm | 606–668 THz |
| Green | 495–570 nm | 526–606 THz |
| Yellow | 570–590 nm | 508–526 THz |
| Orange | 590–620 nm | 484–508 THz |
| Red | 620–750 nm | 400–484 THz |
While the first is not impossible to sort out, would you rather deal with the second?
Mar 21, 2010
