1. www.infiniteexpanse.net: I really like the design for infinite expanse. The site name, does not sit horizontally across the top of the screen, the designer uses this space for his content links. Instead the title goes vertically down the top left of his page and his title, in a sans-serif font, sits atop a sillouet tree scene which runs down his entire page like a scroll. This gives the site a minimal and modern look. While his layout is unusual, he has an interesting illustration, which runs perpendicular to his site title, I think it is this dynamic illustration which ties the design together and makes it work well.
   
2. www.youki.be: Youki is a site for its customers to upload their art online. The header has different black and white images which rotate. What I think is working well for the header is its pink bold script header which stands out against the dynamic photos changing behind it.
3. www.thebravern.com: The header is clean, serif font, which ties together well with the hotel, The Bravern's apparent sleek and upscale identity. While the text itself is not bold, the header stands out strong, showing its scale next to the sites content.
   

I downloaded Rabiohead from 1001fonts.com, as the font for my new header. To create the new header I wrote "pseudonym" out twice, on two different layers. The bottom layer was a black outline of the text and the top "pseudonym" layer is a white text with the opacity at fifty percent. I made the white text sit slightly outside the black outline to emphasize the "hand done" and cartoon style I wanted to evoke from the viewer. I finished the header by adding a drop shadow.

1. GIF: This image could be catagorized as the website's banner/titlepage/logo/etc. The branding of company (including this image) has a fun, cutesy, cartoon style, with bright vibrant colors. These "odd" characters appear to be their trademark as they are repeated on their products. There is a cute animation of the characters bouncing up and down, so I think it is nice to see animation accompany the illustration.

2. JPEG: This image is of a pocket protector, which was apart of a blog entry for the website, Derek Powazek - Live in San Francisco. Actually the entire design of his blog is simple, but really dynamic (there is a giant pencil-like illustration of a giant squid with small thumbnails images/links for other photography interlaced inside). Anyway the image of the pocketprotector was a cropped in shot of someone using this pocket protector in their front pocket with pens inside it. The cropping job makes the image clean, clear, and informs the reader of the content of the entry without boring the audience.

3. PNG: This example of a PNG is a small detail from the graphic design agency, Foxie's portfolio. The concept of the site is a bookshelf on a wall and the navigator can see the designers print, identity, web, packaging, or photography portfolios by clicking on the different books. This "about us" detail with the broken pencil and doodle is an opportunity for the viewer to get a brief glance into the designer's creative process.

I got this image off the website: http://www.farmidable.com/desktop-wallpapers. Clearly since it is an illustration it would be best optimized as either a gif or png, and not a jpg file. I choose to upload it as a gif because the file size was smaller.

I created this image entirely on the computer using the program Corel Painter. Since this image was not a photo, nor was there a lot of detail I did not feel that it should be uploaded as a jpeg. Unfortunately the gif format slightly pixelated the the image and did not caputre the color as well as the png file which looked the same as the original image.

This picture of the flowers on the dock with the buildings behind it was taken this summer in Amsterdam during my travels in Europe. The essence of the original image is similar, the original image shows more of the building in the background and the water, but the focus for the viewer is now cleaner and more clear. I cropped in on potted flowers/dock/boat, because that's what I was most interested in when I captured the image. The height of the building, it's additional windows, and other information in the photograph distracted the viewer from what I wanted to illuminate. Originally this was a color photo, and I chose Photoshop instead of Fireworks to edit the image. Aside from cropping, I also used Photoshop's lens option to put an orange filter over the image, took away the remaining color to make it sepia. Then I used the dodge and burn tool to dramatize the photo which makes it more interesting. Since the image is monochromatic I optimized it not only as a jpeg, but as a gif and png too. I choose to keep the file as a jpeg because the dodge and burn detail I added to the photograph showed up best in the jpeg format. As a gif and png, the slight variations in color were not coming through as well.

When I was editing this photograph I wanted to practice primarily on the creation of the border. That is why I only made minimal changes to original photo. Besides cropping out bushes in the images foreground and some excess of the images' landscape, the essence of the photo remains intact. For the photograph's coloring I lessened the brightness, contrast, and saturation because the color pallet of my blog design has earthy tones and an overall lack of color saturation. I used Photoshop to edit the image and make its border and used the gradient tool to darken the edges, and a filter to create the drop shadow. This image has also been optimized as a jpg because all the color in the photograph.

• Monochromatic color scheme: This blog template, Aspire, has a rustic feel (reminds me of a pirate's treasure map!) and is composed of shades of brown.
  
• Analogous color scheme: Summer is a simple and minimalist blog template. The design is primarily green with yellow and orange dragonfly cutouts along the top.
  
• Complementary color scheme: The theme for the blog template, Jeans, is obviously blue denim jeans and they make up the background. Details of shades of orange which make up the text content and titles.
• Saturated color scheme: The flower template, Rainbow Garden, is primarily green with a lively floral arrangement exploding from its top corners. The colors are so vibrant they make me think of a psychedelic rainbow.
  
• Unsaturated color scheme: Feminina 1 is a monochromatic blog template that uses muted shades of a pink to make up the colors of its design.
  

I choose to use a monochromatic color scheme because I wanted my new layout to reflect my minimalist design style and I felt that the muted shades of green expressed my earth-friendly interests and personality. Also green's one of my favorite colors! Unfortunately my design is not entirely monochromatic because I could not change the blue background color, and a few other details in the design template. My base color is green which is a cool color. In my design I used contrasted shades of green (light and dark), varied the text size (blog titles are overly large compared to the small text for the entries), contrasted a serif font(Georgia) for the title with the a sans-serif (Arial) which is used in the rest of the text, and an asymetrical column layout (the left column is 2/3 wider then the left column). Visually in my blog design there is a sense of repetition indicated by the line dividers between each blog entry, the enormous text for each blog title, and the dingbats indicating a new link on the sidebar.

My new layout is from the website: http://mashable.com/2008/05/17/70-plus-new-and-beautiful-blogger-templates/. This layout also has two columns of content. It is another right column layout, which utilizes the rule of thirds. Contrast is utilized in the layout though use of color and illustration against the blog's textual content. The sides of the design has a blue background with an interesting brush pattern, which is harshly contrasted by the white background of the page's center layout, where the text is. Again in my new layout the various titles on the page best exemplify a change of scale. The blue side border of the blog demonstrate the space of the page. The spacious side border keeps the viewers attention drawn to the page's center where the text and content is. The close proximity for the titles and its different lists of keeps the appearance of page's content orderly. The repetition of dingbats for the different titles solidifies a sense of unity in the blog's design.

My blog has two columns and utilizes the 5 column grid system with an asymmetrical right column layout. In my layout an example of contrast is the use of minimal color. I made red blog titles and gold/red links which stand out from the monochromatic shades of black and gray text content and a minimal white background. Size is demonstrated by the change of text size. The text for the title of my blog, "pseudonym" is dramatically larger then the rest of the text in my blog. Next largest are the other page titles which are only noticeably larger then the text size for my content, which I made small. The design of my page is text driven and I chose to keep it minimal which utilized the negative space. In both columns the close textual proximity, such as clustering the title and content below, creates a visual column and content divider with the negative space. My layout has a sense of repetition through the line dividers, color, and text size which is demonstrated in both columns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ I consult this online encyclopedia frequently; anytime I need a general overview of a topic I have little or no knowledge about. What makes this site different from other resource guides and the reason why I love it is that one does not need to be a specialist to be a contributor, so anyone can add to it. In my opinion this makes Wikipedia great because it has information about anything and everything. I have not come across a topic that I could not read about in Wikipedia. It makes me smile when I am navigating another website and they reference Wikipedia for definitions or more information. When referencing Wikipedia just make sure you consult other sources to verify the information you've gathered is actually true.

Hello, I'm Kimberly and very excited to learn web design. I graduated this spring from Loyola Marymount, with a BA in Studio Arts and emphasis in graphic design. Honestly I am taking this class to beef up my resume since I somehow made it through college without ever learning web design. My interests in design are more print and production oriented, and as of right now my dream job would be to work for an art museum. Besides art and design, my other interests include all things food related (i love going to farmers markets, eatting out and sampling ethnic foods, and learning about the slow food movemet), traveling and exploring, and watching old tv seasons box sets.