ASSIGNMENT 1 (25% of grade)

TRYING OUT A LOOK IN PHOTOSHOP AND APPRECIATING YOUR PEERS

   September 2005
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
25 26 27 28 29 30  1
       ^assigned
	    ^mandatory showing for comments (prof will score & record)
	    (possibly 15%/85% score split)
	        ^supervised lab for improving work
   October 2005
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8
       ^day off to be made up (instructor in d.c.)
	     ^final in-class peer scoring of work

	Rules of the Assignment:  

You are to deliver a one page splash page for a web site.  

You will produce this page in photoshop, save it as a GIF or JPG (probably
the latter), or PNG, and place it on the hilton.cec webserver in the cs104
account so that it can be viewed live during Thursday classes.

Your URL should be ending in .htm or .html because your page will contain
links at the bottom, in plain text.  Or if you are ambitious and know how
to use an image map or css-positioned text, you can include links in your
image or on your image.

You will work in pairs, where at least one person has cs100-level skill
with computing tools.

You will be graded as a team and the expectation is that there will
be equal contribution to the design from each person.

You may seek help from others or from the TA, but the expectation is
that you will be presenting your own work that is the product of your
own mind and your own effort.


	Design Problem:

You may choose one of the following European resort beaches:

	Estoril, Portugal

	San Sebastian, Spain

	Camogli, Italy

	Nice, France

(which incidentally are some of your professor's favorite places in
the world...).

You are to produce a (splash page for a mock) web-site for a (fictitious)
client who is seeking to increase the interest of Midwestern American tourists
to travel to the BEACH resort during the off-peak (non-summer) season.

You may grab images and text from any source on web.  Or you can scan
anything you find.  You should be very careful not to include "wrong"
content, such as a picture from Key West, Waikiki, or Negril.  

Remember that Midwestern Americans are conservative in their visual
tastes, so you are not allowed to advertise in ways that you might
advertise, e.g., a Brasilian beach.  With this sentence, students
who violate decency norms on campus will be responsible for their 
transgressions!

You should make ample use of text and make a decision about what content
to include, not just how to include it.

Your page must link (at the bottom is ok) text to:  an appropriate
travel/foreign-language-phrase site, a travelocity/orbitz/expedia type
of site, a currency converter for dollars to euros, a map of the country,
a map of the region, a map of the locale.  Your page should also include
links to any place where you took text, images, or visual inspiration!

Some questions you might ask yourself:

	
With whom should I work, considering that
	the professor is likely to require that I switch teammates
	during the semester and this one seems to be the easiest
	problem he could possibly pose...

	
Which beach?  Can I find information about it?

	
How do other people advertise beaches for tourists?

	
Is there anything specific about my client, my target
	audience, or my budget (YES:  You have two nights to come
	up with something preliminary!)?

	
What is a good layout?  One big image?  Text in columns?
	Something more like a movie poster?

	
I can't animate (yet).  How can I achieve that "punch-in-the-face"
	visual power?

	
What colors will work/are appropriate?  Want to take a risk?

	
Do I want to build any graphics to support my larger design?
	A swirl?  A logo?  A banner?  Custom borders or buttons?

	
When should we get these ideas in Photoshop (ASAP)?  How
	much tweaking will we have to do (A lot!).

	
What if our design changes considerably?  (OK, but don't
	tank the first showing.)

	
What if I disagree with my partner constantly?  (Is there
	any partnership where people don't disagree constantly?)