Some material may be inappropriate for sensitive readers
As I was sitting there, stupefyingly bored by another several hours spent with James and his giant class ring and his blouson shirt hiding his burgeoning man breasts, I got angry all over again. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if we were all required to take a real web design 101, where we learned how to code, and do all this stuff? And then we got to do Clio II, where we had a skilled guide with tons of experience like Dr. Petrik, shepherding us as we make fantastic websites? Wouldn’t that be better than the half-assed, haphazard manner in which most of us are currently making our websites? Didn’t most of us choose to do PhDs at George Mason because of the new media component? But what are we really doing? New media at the PhD level shouldn’t be about putting together websites that an intelligent high schooler could do. Some of the kids at National History Day would crap all over our sites if they were judging us for a change of pace. The current crop of historical web design is passé. The Lost Museum? Over it. Been there, done that. And done and done and done. If you want me to be interested in a website about P.T. Barnum, make me feel like I just met the Feejee Mermaid, and have decided that we’re BFFs and I’m taking her home for Easter to meet the family. I want a website that reminds me of the first time I heard Jeff Mangum singing about Anne Frank or saw the House of the Black Madonna. I want it to make my jaded self think “huh, that’s new.” I joke, but I don’t, when I say I want websites that will make toast while pleasuring me.
Not too many people clicked the link to Whitney Anne Trettien’s website in last week’s post. I like her thesis site because it is an innovative approach. Is it ever going to be a top Google hit? I kind of doubt it. But what I like is that she programmed the entire thing herself. She didn’t use a template, she didn’t follow the five design rules she was given in a book or an aging frat boy. She had to figure out how to write the code to make it do what she wanted. She had a vision of what she wanted her thesis to be in the online environment, and she ran with it. And you either have the stamina and the interest to follow it through to the end, or you abandon it halfway. But in the interim, you’ve had an actual interactive web learning experience. And isn’t that better than some tatty paragraphs in a fancy font?
I love great design. I’ve taken hellacious bus rides to the bowels of Central Europe to find a Cubist housing development or a little known Hundertwasser. Multimillion dollar exhibitions should always be about great design, at least, because their content is inevitably compromised by an education department demanding that little Billy should be able to take the metro down to the Mall for a satisfying educational experience without mom and pops on board to help him with the big words or the scary pictures. Making our own websites costs us nothing but our own time and effort, and a chunk of change for a computer, software, and hosting. So if I’m busting my hump, I want to be satisfied with my product. I want it to be my vision, my creative investment, and if it’s a failure in terms of its attractiveness to the greatest common denominator, so be it. But isn’t this the time for experimentation and failure?
Let us be visionaries. Let us look to those working in time based media, perhaps, for inspiration, if Whitney isn’t doing it for you. But let us not, for the love of all that is holy, feel like we have to make the same damn websites over and over again.
I’m with you in principle.
I am finding though, that given how steep this “doing good design” learning curve is for me, I’ll be happy with a site that is simple and clean and presents the content the way I want it to be presented. I think as time goes on and I get more comfortable with doing this myself (as opposed to relying on a design and development team for the heavy lifting) I’ll get more vociferous and think outside the box.
I think most people are with me on the principle. I believe it’s the technical skills that are the problem. But I also think that the readings and the videos tend to make us afraid to try new things. Your website is already well on its way to be something truly special.
Thanks. I think the point is to force us to think about our content in a new way and I’m finding that aspect of it really challenging. Fun challenging, but scary as hell, nonetheless.
And I think though, because it’s so different, we tend to get complacent and fall back into what we know. Call me a raving optimistic lunatic, but I’m hoping as the technology becomes more accessible (with content management systems and dynamic site building tools) that the hurdle lessens and allows us the room to think creatively. Pipe dream? Meh I hope not.
I certainly agree that a lot of these readings have initially been more frightening than reassuring – especially when I don’t even know what the words they’re using mean. And I agree that I, for one, could have really used a design class or HTML/CSS class before taking this one – and especially a photoshop class. I spent so much time figuring out the basics that I just don’t have the time to move on to anything advanced. And that leads to the problem I’ve been having from the beginning – i am forced to use a template, which has something weird that breaks my code, and I can’t figure it out. And I waste more time wrestling with something someone else wrote instead of creating something that works for me and my purposes. I wish I already had the basic skill set, because I could have done something pretty cool if I had. As of right now – i’m going for respectable, straightforward, and usable.
Hi Alexa, thanks for the kind words on my thesis! I wouldn’t call it “good design” (I’ve been told the entire site is rather ugly — and don’t really disagree with that statement), but I do agree that we don’t think enough about the expressive possibilities of the web. A lot of standard practices in digital humanities (e.g. the use of particular templated tools, databases) separates form from content; I’m interested in seeing more work that doesn’t believe in that distinction.
I should have specified that it’s the information architecture of your site that I like. I mean, I’m probably never going to develop a love of neon, but I really like that you worked outside of available templates and didn’t sacrifice how you wanted your thesis to be read in favor of a traditionally accepted layout. Students should not be afraid to try, even if it means being not altogether successful.