Project 2 Overview
important due dates
- April 4: CSS Web site / Portfolio rough draft due
- April 18: CSS Web site / Portfolio final draft due; present to class
- March 27 through May 5: Twice weekly CSS Journal entries due no later than noon Friday each week posted to the CSS Journal discussion forum (only one posting due the weeks of March 21 and May 5).
creating your professional web site
In this section of Project 2, you will be designing a professional-looking Web site that you could present to future employers. This means that your new Web site will consist of many things, but not: pictures of you and your friends, sports team logos, bland descriptions of yourself, pictures of UT, etc. In short, anything that you think is not resume-type material will not be on the page. It can, however, include: a brief professional bio of yourself and your interests, a copy of your resume, and detailed discussion of your skills the in the related area -- anything you think an employer would be interested in reading.
The layout you decide on will be used throughout the whole of the site: the portfolio, and any other pages you wish to include. Your Portfolio, however, may have a different layout if you'd like. I suggest going through a similar, but not as extensive, design process as you did not Project 1: draw a pencil sketch, create a line-sketch using Photoshop, etc. Then, if you so choose, you can use InkNoise's Layout-o-matic to help design the basic layout structure.
web site specifics
The following criteria must be met:
- change the name of your old "index.html" page to "index-old.html" and then name the CSS-designed page "index.html"
- place your stylesheet in a "styles" folder and all images in an "images" folder (this includes all images from your portfolio)
- place all portfolio-related pages in a "portfolio" folder
- the site must be designed using CSS and XHTML; do not use deprecated HTML tags
- meets Section 508 accessibility standards
- validates as acceptible CSS and XHTML; provide links stating as such in the footer
- create at least two images, one of which will be a banner (an image, in this case, is not just a cropped photo, nor is it an image with just text)
- at least one of your images should be created using the techniques found at or through http://www.spoono.com/
- in your list of links, provide links to the main CSS designer blogs you are reading to learn more about CSS and Web Standards (there should be 5 blogger links, two of which can be from the list of links on the course site)
- the front page content should have information about you that a potential employer might be interested in reading
- if you use InkNoise's Layout-o-matic, the layout of the page should be altered in some interesting ways (i.e. adding a new div section -- simply changing color and border size will not be enough).
- all HTML pages must use an .html extension, not .htm
If you are planning to create a portfolio for a field other than Web design or one of the many arts (visual, photographic, digital, etc.), please see the instructor so you can work out assignment specifics that fit your needs.
sample student professional re-design
Here is a former student's initial "index.html" page created in the first few weeks of class:
And here is the same student's re-designed "index.html" created using CSS and XHTML:
