Information, tools, tips, and tricks for creating functional and friendly web pages.

Geoff Latham

Web Pages Made Easy

Introduction/Instruction/Presentation – 45 minutes

Hands on Work time / Construction Demo – 45 minutes

Group sharing, evaluation, Q&A, Final thoughts – 30 minutes

Workshop Breakdown:

Geoff Latham teaches Visual Arts at Coahoma Agricultural High School on the campus of Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale, MS.

Has been designing web pages for fun and profit since 1996 and in addition to the visual arts has a background in journalism, media writing, photography, as well as musical and theatrical performance.

Reach me at geoffreylatham@gmail.com and look for me on Facebook, Myspace, or at geoffreylatham.com

Who is this guy?

Web pages should be informative, visual pleasing, and inviting to visitors.

Three watchwords for any good web page are functionality, readability, and navigability.

Good Web pages are 80% Creativity and 20% THEFT!

Less is more. Clutter Kills. There is such a thing as TMI

Like any visual art form, the elements of art and principles of design bear consideration in its construction.

My Philosophy of Web Design

Make a flyerDesign a BrochureType a letterTake a pictureCopy and PasteDrag and DropEmail

YOU CAN BUILD A

WEB SITE!!!

If you can…

Habitat of the elusive wild web page

Server – a computer that hosts directories and files where your page lives and is accessed on the web.

Habitat of the elusive wild web page

Directory – folders on a server that can be accessed from the web and help to keep sites, pages, and the files they use, organized.

www.yoursite.com/Image Files/Photo.bmp

Habitat of the elusive wild web page

Site – A collection of individual web pages hosted together and designed for a central purpose or working together as components of an overall greater document.

Anatomy of the elusive wild web pagePage – an HTML

document that a web browser reads. This is the basic element of web design.

Any document, flyer, brochure, power point slide, or any other number of information sources can be easily turned in to a page. Pages typically consist of components such as text, images, tables, and links.

(Hyper-Text Markup Language)

Anatomy of the elusive wild web page

TitleMenu ->

Bulleted List

Assorted Eye Candy

What purpose does my page serve?

Who is my target audience?

Who/What is represented by my web page?

What is the level of my technical expertise?

How much time am I willing to dedicate to

maintenance and upkeep?

Things to consider before beginning…

Objective: Create a simple informative web page with a background image, a title, a heading, easily readable text on at least 2 different fonts/styles, a simple menu of hyperlinks (either vertical or horizontal), and a few images.

Suggestions: 1. Using tables to help position text and images can give

your page a less “basic” look.2. Using subtle colors makes your page easier to read and is

less “tiring” on the eyes.3. Using scaled images and thumbnails that link to full size

images helps to make your page flow better and fit all in the browser window.

Initial Web Page Project

Spend about 45 minutes working on your own web page either using Microsoft Word, the freeware design tool provided, or your favorite document editor.

There are tips specific to Microsoft Word located on the example page in your Web Pages Made Easy folder.

After you are done, save your work as “index.html” in a folder on your desktop labeled yourlastname_page. Your project will be transferred to a flash drive and moved to this computer for review by the group.

Work Time!

Your web page is a great way to showcase student art work, to disseminate information to parents / students, and to demonstrate to your administration your technical skills and desire to share your students’ achievements with the world.

Don’t be afraid to experiment, explore, and learn more about web publishing. It gets easier and more flexible every day. Both you and your students have something to contribute to the “global conversation,” be sure your/their voices are heard!

Final Thoughts…

I hope you found our time together informative and the tools that were shared useful

Thanks so much for your time and participation!