Anne Ladyem McDivitt Posts

If you ask anyone who has known me for a decent amount of time, they can tell you my go-to color–blue. I usually incorporate blue into everything that I do: clothes, decor, design, etc. I admit I was nervous going in this week and knowing that the readings were about colors. Although from White Space is Not Your Enemy, I did get a huge takeaway! “Choose one main color and add an accent color or two for interest.” (127) This idea sounds great to me. This will allow me to have some type of color and brightness somewhere in my digital works! Basically, I plan on using the color tools pretty extensively in my future digital works so that I don’t end up with a bright and colorful mess. I also really loved the idea of pulling from the image, which we’ve encountered in class. I believe I now have tools in my belt to keep myself from creating a pastel or blue mess of anything that I try to create in a digital form, which will be incredibly helpful moving forward.

Otherwise, I’m really excited by some of the information and techniques that were relayed in Williams’s The Non-Designer’s Photoshop Book. There are a lot of helpful things that I had no idea how to do, even though I think I am fairly versed in Photoshop, and they might come in handy for both photographs I have for personal use or even my thesis research. Mainly, I look forward to utilizing some of these for our upcoming image project!

So far, I commented on Kirk’s blog.

I have been steadily working on my type assignment, which has been a fun and interesting experience for me. What I decided to do is take a small (very small) portion of my thesis and try and adapt that into a workable piece for the assignment. This, as always, has not been without struggle. I am still fighting with footnotes so that they are not placed in paragraph form rather than list. (Yes, I’ve tried ul, li multiple times. No dice.) –Note, I may have finally figured out the problem, but now I’m working on making those link up!

I had to think carefully about which fonts to use where, what was appropriate, and what would stick out or be obnoxious (which I tend to fear while writing for the web.) I wanted to have highlights, small photos, and a very readable font, so I made my text font larger but a normal font (Courier) so that the display font would pop.

It’s very interesting to think for the web, rather than for a written manuscript like I am used to. I had to think of what works, what doesn’t, and how much spacing should be between everything. I had to think of what I am and am not willing to read on the internet. Ultimately, I ended up cutting a lot of what I originally thought that I would have in there. If you’re interested in seeing it, it is here. (I hope that works this time. It tends to not want to. The url is anneladyem.org/type.html if it is not working.)

This week, I commented on Ben and Kirk’s blogs.

For those of you that need the information, the DH Fellows hold support hours on Mondays from 12-5. You’re more than welcome to come in with questions during those times.

As you all know, I had a crazy flub with my website last week. I blogged about that through the week here. Luckily, I have a  website that I think is workable now (although, as we all know, it still needs improvement. I’ll take any suggestions in the comments!)Link is being fussy with me for some reason, but the URL is anneladyem.org.

This week, we had to read more about design, which I felt was immensely helpful. One thing that I had to consider when I was remaking my website was, “What kind of theme do I want? How can I demonstrate what I’m about?” That concept is how I came to decide on a classic gaming theme. However, I stuck to the idea that the reversal text is a no-no.

Since that scratched out the idea of an old computer game, such as Mystery House‘s black background and white text, I decided that the classic Nintendo theme was a better idea. That allowed for a grey text/background, as well as a pop of red for the title. I also switched out the photo of myself for a cover from an issue of Electronic Games, which was a big source of mine throughout my thesis. I also liked this idea, as it tied in the theme of the display fonts. Everything that is put on the web MUST be readable, and so I used the Courier fonts for the actual text, as it reflects an older style of writing, but it is still very legible on the web.

I am trying to think of my website as a grid now after doing the readings this week, and so going forward, that will be the concept that I consider while adding more to this.

See my comment on Beth’s blog this week.

Well, after the minor disaster that was me trying to mess around with my website, I scrapped the entire thing and started over. Right now, it’s very bare bones and does not have all of the text added (or links for that matter on the menu, which I’m still working on the spacing and coloring). However, I feel like the color scheme (Classic Nintendo) and the image work better for what I’m trying to go for, and I hope that it is going to be an overall better website for me. If you want to check it out and see the new progress and redemption from the disaster that was me trying to fix my template, feel free. Link is still the same– anneladyem.org.

Moral of the story–Don’t mess with things right before class. They can, and most likely will, break.

This week, with the portfolio site due, I decided to try out altering a template using Dreamweaver. The results, luckily, were not terrible. It took a lot of work to try and figure out how to make the HTML work with the template, especially when I did not recognize some of it. I took out pieces that were not needed for my website, and I removed anything that I haven’t learned yet, for simplicity’s sake. Obviously the website will get better as we move forward in the semester and learn more, but overall, I am pleased with my results.

The worst part this week was figuring out how to attach my website to the domain via my FTP. I realized, after so much frustration, that I had been using the wrong FTP information when trying to connect, but I got it sorted out. Everything should be working, and I look forward to being able to make a website that is visually appealing and interesting.

The URL is here, so you can see for yourself my results.

See my comment on Sara’s blog.

For one, I completely relate to Jannelle’s issue of an important website being pretty terrible. My experience with the Washington Gas site has been miserable!! It shows that design truly is important, and something we all must think about as we move forward.

As I was reading about design, I saw a list of four things good graphic design does. These things are:
1. It captures attention.
2. It controls the eye’s movement across the page or screen.
3. It conveys information.
4. It evokes emotion.

Although this list seems pretty “duh”, it really stuck with me as I read that design really isn’t that much different than what we do as historians. Those things on the list–we do them with writing. As historians, we build an argument and a story using the resources available to us. As digital historians, we must think of building in much different ways. I, in particular, felt that the Stanford Web Credibility Project will be very useful for us to utilize when we create our own projects. Much like historians use the old method of peer-reviewed journals and academic presses, this can be our new guide of how to tackle design for our projects.

This week, I commented on Kirk’s blog.

Hi guys! Most of you, I remember from last semester, but I just wanted to say that this is now my blog for Clio Two. I look forward to seeing you all this semester, and I hope that this will be a fun and informative semester.

Since we have been exploring the world of digital history throughout the semester, I figured that this topic would eventually come up. One thing that I have noticed while working with the fields of digital and public history is that collaboration is key to success, whereas traditional history focuses on one author, one book. However, as Dr. Kelly mentioned earlier, there is some type of collaboration in that process as well that makes the end product possible. With public and digital projects, the product can be multi-authored. There is also the aspect of working with the community, where even further collaboration is needed to make the project happen. 

As you all are used to by now, one article in particular stuck out to me this week– “Improvising Digital History in the Deep South Digital Desert.” Being from Tennessee originally and doing most of my undergraduate and graduate work until now in Florida, I have dealt with the issue of digital history being taken seriously. Michael Mizell-Nelson says, “More students will undertake and complete digital projects once their thesis or dissertation advisors and entire departments value – and not merely approve of or tolerate – such work.” At my MA program, we had an option of a public or digital history project, but it was not the encouraged choice. With the research programs, collaborative projects were not encouraged, as only one person could “win” the forum, even if it was collaborative.

Once more programs and historians embrace collaboration and digital history, I believe that we will get more creative projects from it. I think I’m just rambling at this point, I believe, as I like the idea of being able to collaborate. I want more creativity, and I want the field to embrace it more!