Week 6: Advanced Web Typography and … TO BE DETERMINED (By You!)

It’s been a long week, so this update will be short and sweet. At this point, I have responded to every Zen Garden proposal I’ve received, so if you haven’t heard from me, please contact me ASAP with a proposal for your Zen Garden motif. Once I’ve approved your proposal, you should begin working on your design. Don’t be deceived by the apparent simplicity of this project (Hey, it’s only one page! How hard could it be?). Trust me: you’ll need to pace yourself on this assignment.

Here’s a quick overview of how we’ll spend our time in class during Week 6:

On Tuesday, we will explore some advanced typographic techniques that will come in handy as you work on your Zen Garden redesign. Before you come to class, please read Oliver Reichenstein’s “Web Design Is 95% Typography” and click through Jeff Croft’s “Elegant Web Typography” presentation. (Croft’s presentation is quite long, and it’s best viewed at full-screen size, so give yourself plenty of time for this one.) If you’re feeling ambitious, you might want to review some of my other typography bookmarks on Delicious, as well.

On Thursday, we’ll do one of two things, based on your votes. The first option is to have our first exam of the semester. The second option is to conduct a peer-review workshop for the CSS Zen Garden assignment. If you collectively choose the peer-review workshop, we’ll have the first exam on the following Tuesday (October 5th), which is two days before the Zen Garden assignment is due. I realize that would make Week 7 very hectic, so if you would prefer, we can get the test out of the way during Week 6. I will leave it up to you, so please indicate your preference by leaving a comment on this post. All you need to write in your comment is “peer review” or “test.” I’ll update this post with the outcome as soon as a clear majority has emerged. [Update: The votes are in, and we will have the first exam of the semester on Thursday. The peer-review workshop will take place next Tuesday. Please come to class on Thursday ready for the exam, which will consist of three sections: multiple choice questions, short responses (definitions and mini-essay), and a coding exercise.]