Website's Need a Good Stretch From Time to Time

This week I made a start on my website for the new assignment. I went out and took some pictures of various 'interesting objects' around my house, and have decided to make my website on my local high school.

Because I have never made a website solely in CSS before, I decided it was best to look into it somewhat. I looked through a few magazines I had previously bought and took a few ideas, and also looked at the website and found a few articles on CSS design.

One of the most interesting articles was an article about liquid websites that can adapt to fit the screen size. Although this is possibly a little ambitious for my first CSS website, I have decided to take the risk and attempt to create a 'liquid' or 'elastic' website. To do this I have also looked into a few other articles including an article on elastic design and an article about measuring in em's.

I have also so far completed my 'team roles' section of the website, and have gathered a few images for the first task. I still have a long way to go with the assignment, and a lot of work to do in the next few days if I am to keep on a sort of target.

One of the most difficult parts of the assignment so far is the time planning, I have attempted to create a basic outline of what I plan to do in my 120 hours, but without having set hours to the assignments as usual I am finding it rather difficult. I may try and do 32 hours a week to try and keep on top of the assignment and also so I can plan it out better like a normal college week, but with holidays coming up this could be quite difficult too.

I may use some of my 'free time' for the week to try an experiment with various ways of time keeping and see what suits me best for this assignment.

Olympic Logo a No Go?

THIS is the new £400,000 Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London, and less than a week after it was unveiled it is already under strict criticism from what seems to be the entire nation.

Almost half a million pounds was spent designing and creating it and it's difficult to see what exactly this money went on. Obviously not on gaining user feedback that's for sure. And with the recent revelation that the logo is actually dangerous to people with epilepsy and migraine sufferers, obviously not basic health and safety checks either.

But regardless of the costs, is the logo really that bad? In a recent television survey, they found 85% of people disliked the new Olympic logo, which leaves only a minor 15% who actually like it, or at the very least don't dislike it. In my personal opinion I dislike the logo immensely but from a design point of view is it any good?

Well, for a start it is obviously a very distinct shape unlike any other logo I have seen before, and it is quite memorable too being shaped as the 20-12 letters. It can be used in both colour and in black and white format, and uses it's space wisely. In fact the only one of the 4 logo design principles the logo doesn't meet is that if it were to be used at too small a size the word London, and the rings may become distorted and be hard to read/see. But 3/4 isn't bad.

This is a point of which I think must be remembered, that no matter how many of the 4 design principle boxes you tick, no matter how much time, money or effort you put into designing a logo, you must do the basics things such as researching your audience, or you too will end up with something similar to the London 2012 Olympic one.

Online Petition - Change the London 2012 Olympic Logo