New Media Production

A place where Hyde Healy showcases his work and progress in NMIX 4110-6110 New Media Production

I have never thought of myself as a coder, web designer, or even particularly computer-savvy. And though it is simple and short, I am proud of creating this website. I am from New Orleans, so I decided to make my website about the city! It was cool getting to employ skills learned in class and FCC, like making lists or wrapping an image in a border, to a real project. Additionally, although it is probably the coding equivalent of simple addition, linking from Google Fonts to change the font on my website made me kind of feel like a wizard.

One thing I struggled a lot with was creating a suitable NAV header. I wanted a simple, horizontal bar that would remain static. It took some tinkering and a few tutorial videos/pages, but I was finally able to do it. In the future, I would like to learn more about adding more video or GIF elements to my website. Overall, I was able to put my learning into action during this project and am proud of the outcome.

Project Two

My panel one experience was fun and rewarding. I found it very cool that I could put in a search bar with my Navbar. Bootstrap made it relatively easy to include cool features. One thing I am proud of on my panel one is the carousel. When I first started the panel, I wrote off putting in a carousel as too complicated but, after looking through Bootstrap, I gave it a go and it turned out pretty well.

My panel two experience was more fun and involved than I thought it would be. It was an interesting challenge adapting my panel one to my chosen theme for panel two. In particular, adapting my carousel pictures into my chosen theme was fulfilling. It felt sort of like a puzzle. How can I make my pieces from panel one fit into panel two? Also, the notion of themes opened my eyes. I had no idea it was as easy as this to create an aesthetically pleasing and (somewhat?) professional looking website.

My panel three experience was fulfilling and uniquely interesting. I found it fun customizing my theme to fit my personal aesthetic and design. One thing I particularly enjoyed is editing my nav bar so that it changes colors when you scroll. Color-wise, I tried to adhere pretty carefully to the Saints colors of black, gold, and white. Overall, I enjoyed this project. One thing I hope to learn more about soon is making more responsive and visually stimulating carousels.

Project Three

My experience creating my news site was fun yet challenging. I chose to make a site similar to the UGA Red & Black, called the Black & Red. I used the theme “News 24x7,” which was really helpful in allowing me to capture a fluid, up-to-date news website. My main plug-ins included ones the theme recommended, including JetPack and Catch Themes Demo Import. For my news stories, I fleshed some of them out using graphics, pictures, videos, quote blocks, tables, and interactive buttons. I am especially proud of the opinion piece on students’ attitudes toward foreign professors’ accents. I included quote blocks and a homemade table. Some challenges I ran into was getting my custom CSS to work and trying to include some plug-ins that did not seem to be compatible with my theme. Overall, I enjoyed this project and appreciated WordPress’s user-friendly interface. I hope to learn more about using WordPress and building more complex websites in the future.

My experience creating my e-commerce site was very rewarding yet difficult. I decided to make mine a vintage clothing website specializing in shirts. I used the “StoreFront” theme. The theme and the step by step instructions on getting my site off the ground found on the course site were very helpful. The most useful plug-in I found was the “Product Size Charts Plugin for WooCommerce.” This allowed me to include helpful size charts with some of my products. Other features I was able to include were the ability to leave reviews on products and a pop-up sale notice. Employing widgets was a new helpful skill I learned. I included social media buttons and an “ad” for one of my products in the sidebar of my homepage through widgets. I did struggle at times with making my pages more fluid. Overall, I enjoyed making this commerce page and hope to learn more about creating e-businesses in the future.