Project Report, Week Five

Well I did my first CSS page. It looks bad, but I learned a lot. One aspect of creating web pages from scratch that never crossed my mind is graphics. The nonprofit has stock photos and images, but they do not have any accent graphics. Most template based design programs already have a huge repository of these types of graphics and places them on the page for you automatically, but not having these graphics makes a page bland and less than ordinary. In my first CSS page I made a very crude attempt to insert a graphic, but in the end the whole thing looks 'campy'. In the future I will have to make time for graphic design and layout.

Dreamweaver is still back-ordered, but I downloaded a 30 day free trail from Adobe. So I'm good for at least the next 20 days. I still have a lot to learn with Lynda. I have realized that I have to spent more time watching the videos and practicing with Dreamweaver. I am going today and buying a CSS reference book. Lynda is great, but Lynda with a book is far better.

My goals for this week are:

• Learn about spacing, padding, and positioning. The instructor, in the videos, talks about learning to think in CSS. To be able to draw out a page design and have the ability to know what labels and CSS rules are needed to create the page as drawn.
• Create the accent graphics needed to make the page look more professional. This will be a beginning, as I create each graphic I will added it to the page. In doing this one graphic at a time I will be able to focus on spacing, padding, and positioning.
• Create an updated Home page. Taking what I will learn and applying it to create something more professional looking.