Final Project Site References

As y’all know I am doing a site over self defense, defending your property and family. I did not have a problem finding sites that contained excellent information to help me out with my project, but all of the sites were about as basic as you can get. They were all set up almost like a blog or article. So.. I have the information I need to place into the site, but I am starting from scratch as far as the design. Here are the sites that I located:

21 Ways to Protect Yourself from Theft

This site is awesome when it come to information, but it is set up like a blog or article. Like ALL of the sites that I have viewed they tried to pile all the information of the site onto just a few pages. Very good info.

Self Defense

This site look s like your typical macho martial arts website, and it gives a ton of information. Although their demographic may be geared toward men it still gave me some ideas toward the layout of information.

Self Protection Tips

This site gives excellent information on self defense during everyday life and in normal situations. The layout to me is horrible though.

Close Combat

This is another site that has very good information. One things that I like that they incorporated into the site was video of the self defense moves. This layout is still pretty rough.

No Nonsense Self Defense

Another site with excellent information. The site has a ton of links on it within the information just incase you need clarification on certain terms about self defense. Although they tried a little harder on the design and layout than the other sites it is still very basic.

So I have all of the resources I need to help me with the information in the site. I am anxious to hear the critiques on my color comps. I am also anxious to get started.

My Final Project Idea

I think I am going to do the final project over a business that sells self-defense equipment (guns, pepper spray, knives, ect…). I did a page similar to what I am thinking about in week 2’s homework. The site I will build will be different, and I think it will be fun to do.

Let me know what you think.

CSS Layouts

I found two really good articles in my search. They are:

“Breaking out of the Box with CSS Layouts”

“CSS Float Theory: Things You Should Know”

Lets start with the first article.  The author, Jina Bolton, explains to the readers just how important a good layout is, and she tackles some of the issues that some designers have toward standardized layouts using CSS. One of the issues is that some web designers feel that designing a lyaout around a grid is too boring and boxy. Well, Bolton has a great response to it. She compares a standardized layout to the wood frame of a house. That wood frame can go several direction depending on the architect (in our case the designer). One architect can build the home into some boxy and boring, but you put the designing into another architect’s hands and he can turn that wood frame into a work of art. That to me is a great comparison. How often do you design a site and when you are finished you realized that you just settled for the design, and not took the extra time to make it look nice? I think that what she said is a slap in the face to the designers that are complaining. Bolton also give some information of designing around a grid and using wireframes. This site would be a great site to put into your aggrigator because they are posting articles daily just on CSS.

The second article is also very good. It is geared on floated layouts, and he tackles some of the gripes and complaints that some people may have about it. He gives a TON of information, and to make it even better he has a ton of links to other really good articles. This is how he describes floats:

“A floated box is positioned within the normal flow, then taken out of the flow and shifted to the left or right as far as possible. Content may flow along the side of a float. […] When a box is taken out of normal flow, all content that is still within normal flow will ignore it completely and not make space for it.”

I learned a lot about floats with in this article, so I highly recommend it. One reason is for the article and the other will be for the links that it provides for more information.