Tips for the Babies

And now, I pass down wisdom, hard-earned after a semester, for the benefit of all you babies out there. Behold:

• Do the homework! It can be a drag sometimes, especially around the middle of the semester when all of your other classes only have the occasional paper, but really, just do it. The practice is good, and it is so not worth messing up your GPA for this class.
• Don't be too angry that you didn't test out of this class. It's pretty interesting, and even if you are sure you know everything, chances are, you really don't.
• Ms. Belisle is really into design, so take an extra few minutes when you finish a project to make sure it looks nice!
• Keep up with your grades on Blackboard- it's an interesting tool to have at your disposal, plus there are random point bonuses a few times if you keep up with it.
• For exams: look over the course outlines a day or two before. Pretty much everything you need is contained within these pages! Whatever you don't understand, that's what the TA is for!
• Please note that most of the campus computers don't have Photoshop readily available- it is worth the download time to get the trial version.

Websites

I was really impressed by all of the websites that I saw, but I'll point out a few favorites:

1. Katie Doucet's. First, I love that she made a site for her brother's band! Also, I love the layout, and the design work she did. The biography is hilarious, and I like the way she made some words stand out. The layout of the pictures page is unusual but spiffy.
   
2. Lindsay Marotta's. The color work she did with her page! I particularly like how she matched her text colors with the colors of the glass that bars the opening page. I also enjoyed looking through her artwork.
   
3. Hae-Won Kim's. Her layout was very easy to follow and interesting. And, a purple fan myself, I absolutely adored the background! I also approve of the way she laid out her photos.
   

You can find my website and critique it at cs.trinity.edu/~egrout

PowerPoint Presentations

I thought everyone had really interesting PowerPoint presentations on Tuesday. There was really good use of color in all of them. I liked the way Jeff's sort of looked like a video game, with the font choices and general color scheme. I was also impressed with his graphs! Luisa had such a snazzy background, and I liked the rich, earthy colorings she used, and that she gave us information on a relevant current topic. As a fellow International Studies major, I approved! And the flawless transitions were pretty great too. 

And then there was Jenni's- I LOVED it. Really, I go into raptures. I left a huge comment for her going into detail, but there is so much to talk about! The topic was neat, of course, but I really loved all of her aesthetic choices. It looks like she got the striking color scheme from the logo for Doctors Without Borders, which I thought was a really neat way of working it in. The slide where she showed the pictures with the key words was really amazing- the way she layered in the second picture, and when one of the words was red as an extra emphasis. I also liked that she added the video.