From the
Web Designers:
Joe Gaczewski, the web designer of Open Window, completed the initial version
of this web site for English
382: Advanced Literary Web Publishing
taught by Dr. Randy Brooks, director of the writing major at
Millikin University. The
web site is an exclusive on-line publication of Michael Dylan
Welch's haiku and photography for Brooks Books. The final version has gone through
extensive re-design to better fit with other Brooks Books online
publications and in consultation with the author. All rights
are reserved. The photographs and haiku are copyright protected.
Do not borrow or use these except for review purposes. Please
contact the author and publisher for permissions.
Joe writes: This web site went through several
modifications: initially, I chose to do multiple frames to give
the images a bordered effect. But after trying a few, I saw that
the images were either cutoff or required scrollbars on small
screens, which I tried to avoid. I had to dump the extra frames
to save room.
I also tried a horizontal thumbnail navigation
index which appeared on every page in frames, but again the scroll
bars appeared on smaller screens distracting from the photographs
and haiku. Dr. Brooks and I also toyed with the idea of mouseOvers
and other JavaScript bonuses to reveal the haiku one image at
a time, but we decided to keep things as simple as possible.
We feel that we were able to create a fun, clean-looking, effective
page for each of Michael Dylan Welch's works.
I also experimented with the use of color and a
variety of typefaces overlapping the photographs, but Dr. Brooks
and the author decided to go with a more consistent use of one
typeface. Here is a sample of one
of the experiments with colored type. And here is another
sample of the haiku overlapping the photograph.
I started creating web pages as a hobby
two and a half years ago as a freshman at Millikin. Since then,
I've re-created my personal site a handful of times and I have
served as webmaster for Innovative Training Solutions, Dickey Staffing Solutions and The Assessment Group.
To cultivate ideas for the design of this
site, I looked at many pages; some of my favorite web site designs
can be found at:
