Viewpoint

Kionic Portal for CUNY Students

DanWong — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:13:09 +0000

In order to streamline some of the sign up processes for CityTech students, Kionic has created a special portal page just for us:

http://kionic.com/cuny

By signing up via this page, Kionic will know that you are a CityTech student. They will set things up so that there will be minimal difficulties that we have encountered in the past, in the classroom.

If you already have an account with Kionic, and are looking to upgrade your services, please do NOT use the form, and instead contact them directly at sales@kionic.com or telephone them at 1.316.768.4039.

Welcome to ADV4850 Fall 2010

DanWong — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:08:04 +0000

Online Branding Strategy 101

DanWong — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:18:29 +0000

SEOmoz – SEO Software

How to get your brand out there? Check out this video.

Winners of the Spring 2010 Kionic Web Design Awards

DanWong — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:25:13 +0000

Most Promising New Web Designer Spring 2010

Keiko Nakayama: http://whatkindofme.com/index.html

Best Web Site Spring 2010

Magdalena Kacicka: http://www.designcatalyst.net/

Shortlist for Spring 2010 Kionic Web Design Awards

DanWong — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:21:11 +0000

Most Promising New Web Designer Spring 2010 Shortlist

http://pickyeye.com/index.html
http://www.travisjbonilla.com/index.html
http://whatkindofme.com/index.html
http://www.jancantor.com/index.html
http://www.sylcmyk.com/
http://siuhim.com/index.html
http://anastasiyakladova.com/index.html

Best Web Site Spring 2010 Shortlist

http://www.bark101.com/index.html
http://www.cocokanji.com/index.html
http://www.designcatalyst.net/
http://www.solidarygames.com/index.html
http://www.enlicious.com/index.html
http://www.chocoliving.net/
http://www.elevenforthecup.com/index.html
http://www.margaretparadise.com/index.html

The New York Accent: What Borough Are You From?

DanWong — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:50:17 +0000

Not being from New York originally, I’ve never been able to determine the difference between each borough’s accent.
Given that most of my students are true New Yorkers, I pose the question “What Borough Are You From?”, after watching the hilarious video below:

Comment, and don’t forget to include a link to your student project site!

Studio Class Following Quiz

DanWong — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:43:51 +0000

Following the 45 minute quiz, students will be spending the rest of the class working on completing their major project. Please come to class prepared to work on your website. I will be meeting with you individually to check progress and answer questions.

Major Project Completion: Due Monday, May 3

DanWong — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:24:55 +0000

This is a reminder to all students in ADV3650 this Spring 2010 semester that your final website projects must be built completely and populated with content by Monday, May 3, 2010. This means you have 3 weeks to complete the project. This will coincide with the Grace Gallery Student Show, May 4-11.
Following the site’s completion, we spend the remaining weeks working on driving traffic to the site, and analyzing the traffic.

Kionic Award Winners Pictured on CityTech Website

DanWong — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:00:43 +0000

Miki Masuda and Solomon Doley, the winners of the Kionic Fall 2009 Web Design Awards were showcased this past week on CityTech’s Picture This section of the website. Check it out.

http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/aboutus/newsevents/picturethis/2010sp/kionic_awards/index.shtml

Meet the Pros: Whitney Pillsbury

DanWong — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:01:47 +0000

Whitney Pillsbury, creative director at Kaplan Thaler Group, will be giving a lecture for the Meet the Pros series at CityTech next week. This promising to be a very entertaining, and insightful presentation, for those students want to hear about how an award winning ad agency works behind the scenes.

Mr. Pillsbury has been with Kaplan Thaler Group since 1997. An award winning agency, known for ads such as AFLAC, Wendy’s, Swiffer, and others, the company has grown exponentially over the past decade, ranking in the top 30 agencies in the US, with a revenue over $1 billion.

Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Time: 3:30pm – 4:45pm
Location: Atrium Amphitheater, New York City College of Technology, CUNY, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY

Facebook event

Layout Homework Assignment

DanWong — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:45:25 +0000

For homework this week, students must send me links to live pages. There should be 3 links in total.

A 2-column layout that we did in class
A 3-column layout that we started in class
A rough layout (colored blocks) of your design for your final project

Make sure that you submit the entire URL, including the “http://” so that when I receive the email, it will be a live link on which I can click.

Branding and Design Assignment

DanWong — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:23:13 +0000

Good design takes work, and it takes time. When the effort has not been put into the work, it shows. Even the best designers in the world put effort into their work. It doesn’t get easier, the quality gets better, and the designs become more interesting.

Here are some of the things that I will be considering when grading the Branding and Design assignment for this week.

Use of typography. Good branding starts with good type.

I can easily spend hours pouring through my font library, looking for fonts that have the appropriate qualities and associations for the product/service. The same font can look very different depending on the color, background, elements near it spatially, and if your combining fonts, what font it is paired with will make each look different. I don’t expect students to create their own typeface, but I do expect them to choose the right font, and make the necessary changes so that the brand is unique. Icons are good, but not necessary.

Look and feel. Look and feel best describes best what I’m asking for with this assignment. I’m NOT looking for wireframes. The goal is to create 3 different homepage designs. It’s about color, aesthetics, style, artwork (whether it’s photos you take yourself, illustrations, effects, manipulated (photoshopped) images, etc.) The feelings associated with the style and design you create has to be appropriate for the topic.

Search the web. Look at magazines and books. Get inspired.

The class will give you feedback, but you determine who your audience is.

Enjoy what you are doing. It’s a creative process.

HTML 5, Apple’s iPad and iPhone platform, No Flash Included

DanWong — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:53:31 +0000

As promised, here is my first blog post of the semester. The purpose of this blogpost is to ensure that all the students have signed up for the Feedburner email updates, and they are receiving them.

So for extra credit, here is an assignment. As you may have already heard, there is a war going on between Apple and Adobe, and HTML 5 is being thrown into the discussion, perhaps as a shield to deflect some of the ire coming from the supporters of each. Apple claims that they are not including Flash in their iPhone and iPad platforms because it is too buggy, and causes them to crash. Adobe claims to be ready, willing, and able to support anything Apple has to offer them. Either way, it seems like HTML 5 is going to be the new web standard.

Here are 3 articles you should read first:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/comment-page-3/

http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_content_and_app.html

After reading these articles, post a comment here, and it will count towards your final class participation grade.

Sign Up for Email Alerts

DanWong — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:40:34 +0000

Students are required to sign up for email updates. Be sure to use an email account that you check regularly.

Fall 2009 Kionic Web Design Awards

DanWong — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:08:01 +0000

Congratulations to all those students who were shortlisted for last semester’s awards competition.
The students sites that were considered for the Kionic Award for Most Promising New Web Designer Fall 2009 are as follows:
http://www.solomondoley.com/
http://www.jchnyc.com/index.html
http://www.acoolportfolio.com/index.html
http://www.intansdesign.com/index.html
http://www.ericajsoto.com/index.html
http://www.cmcastellanos.com/index.html
http://www.peng-xu.com/

The student sites that were considered for the Kionic Best Web Site Fall 2009 are as follows:
http://www.roadtripusa2009.net/
http://www.behappybella.com/
http://www.antitourismnyc.com/index.html
http://jcfoto.net/index.html
http://www.marthasdancecenter.com/
http://www.lovenaturalbeauty.com/index.php

The Kionic Award for Most Promising New Web Designer Fall 2009 and $200 goes to Solomon Doley.

The Kionic Best Web Site Fall 2009 and $300 goes to Miki Masuda for RoadTrip2009.net.

Congratulations to you both.

Homework for This Week

DanWong — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:06:30 +0000

The homework for this week will be, in addition to studying for the quiz, completing the build of your main website project. Please email me a link to your site’s temporary homepage by next class.

Quiz Questions: Be Prepared to Code By Hand

DanWong — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:03:07 +0000

Follow this link to download the questions for next week’s quiz. 8 questions will be selected, with one question requiring you to code by hand with no help with computers or cheat sheets.

http://www.dan-wong.com/resources/AD3650QuizFall2009.rtf

Videotaping Class for CityTech Open House

DanWong — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:32:19 +0000

Please arrive to class on time. The Communications Department may be visiting our class, and it is important that students show up on time and are not wandering in late during the lecture.

School Closed Monday… Wed, Oct 14 Follows Monday Schedule

DanWong — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:21:22 +0000

This a reminder to students of Monday’s Advanced Web class. The school is closed on Monday. The class is rescheduled and will take place on Wednesday, October 14. Same time, same place.

Affiliate Programs or Banner Ads

DanWong — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:30:05 +0000

I mentioned this in my Monday class, but not to the Tuesday class, so here is the announcement officially…

Students have a choice to execute affiliate programs or banner ads on their project website. Both are not required, just one. Extra marks will be given to those who choose to do both.

Affiliate Program

An affiliate program will be considered satisfactorily executed if the student has actually signed up and implemented an affiliate program on their site. I can easily tell if you’ve just stuck an advertisement on your site, rather than implementing a true program. Simply sticking an ad on your site that is not part of an affiliate program does not fulfill the requirement.

Banner Ad

The purpose of adding this option is because some have chosen website concepts that are not conducive to the advertising of competing websites or other distracting information. If you choose to do the banner ad option, there are some requirements that you must follow:

You must design and implement ads in three (3) standard size formats.
The design must be attractive in appearance, appropriate for the site and audience, and well written.
You must integrate the ads in your site layout.
For extra grades, you should find another site willing to display your ad.