Style

Overview:
For this assignment, you will modify your blog's design through the language of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Your product should reflect an intentional use of style that performs a substantive and effective contribution to your blog's rhetoric. Also, it should be properly encoded using well-formed, commented CSS.

You will proceed by switching your blog's theme -- I recommend a minimalist theme like the wordpress default, simplr, pressrow, or plain blog template -- and then editing the theme's stylesheet to make it your own. This editing takes place under Appearance -> Custom CSS. Choosing a simpler theme to tweak gives you more room to work with, since taking a complex or heavily image-dependent theme and making it your own often requires tedious de-styling of the original theme. Start with as clean a slate as possible.

Before you even begin, however, sketch an idea for how you want your new design to look. Pencil and paper is fine, so long as you can scan it, or you may want to use GIMP or Aviary. Next, proceed to transform your blog to look more and more like the sketch.

Finally, submit your work by creating a "design brief" on the class website. As part of this, you will need to identify your starter theme, upload your sketch, and upload a screenshot of the current design.

Then, prepare a short essay (~400 words) in which you reflect on the process and goals of your redesign. Does it get close to your original vision? If not, why not? What difference does the difference make? Does the new design create a different effect for your audience? Are you going to keep this design?

This assignment is worth 80 points, and all material is due no later than the beginning of class, April 6.