For my final project, I’d like to create a site that serves as a story. (Sort of like North or Choice and Chance.)

A good friend of mine works at a meadery–where they make mead. I want to go there and take video and photographs of the process then basically create a full-page slide show with text over it.

Particular challenges will be the automatic start and stop of the video clips and making the video and photographs fill an entire screen (depending on the screen). I’ve looked up different methods though, and I think I can do it. I think there will be about ten slides, and some sound.

I plan to check out the fancy cameras from school and head down to my friend’s and take some of the video. They’ll be very portrait-like. I’ll just set up the camera on a tripod and let it sit. I want the design to be aesthetic and minimalist.

Audience: Nerds! Really, anyone who enjoys aesthetically pleasing things and history. I really enjoy behind-the-scenes, and I think that’s sort of what this is. I think this is a project that the ladies who run the podcast “Stuff You Missed in History Class” would find interesting. And their audience.

UPDATE:

So, I did it. It was perfectly exactly how I pictured, but I did it. I wish it were more full screen, and I didn’t do any of the cinemagraph stuff because, while it’s super cool, the app I found to do it (so I didn’t have to do it myself via photoshop–with which I have no experience) charges like fifty bucks. And I am poor. But, the version with the watermark is still pretty cool to look at. I just can’t include it.

For my final project I am thinking of creating a personal website or a workout website, I haven’t decided yet. For my personal website I would showcase the work I’ve done at Georgetown and High Point University, my resume, as well as some of the work I have done for clients at Sage Communications.

As far as a workout blog, I would think about creating workouts of the day and posting them on a daily basis. As a former division 1 athlete I am always looking for new ways to stay active, and this could be a good way to show others how I vary up my exercise.

The personal website would need to be more professional, and clean cut. For the workout website it could be more scattered with more going on.

I’ve had a lot of fun learning how I can use tools in web development in my line of work. While this class has been challenging, I have definitely learned things that I will continue to use in my career That being said, I would like to design a special template for the Fine Arts section of The Washington Post.

Currently I work with the Classical Music and Dance critics, who often produce opinion pieces called ‘critic’s notebook.’ This long running feature is a really neat way to see the arts from their perspective, but not a lot of treatment is given to the pieces, or the Fine Arts team in general.

Since there’s such a gap between its print and digital existence I would like to step in and bridge the gap. Buy making a template that shows a critics notebook in a fun and engaging way we can begin to set our team apart from the rest of the Features section.

While this is an untested idea, I think it would be really cool to make the web page look like a notebook, and perhaps so some special touches to make the photos and illustrations more pronounced on the page. This way, when the reader is on the page, they’ll know its a different and more special piece, apart from their traditional reviews. I’ll probably integrate this into my personal website, that I’ll use an updated WordPress template on, as a place to showcase it.

Goals: 

My goals for this project are twofold.

• First, I would like to create a personal website that showcases what I’ve learned in this class
• Second, I want to create a digital “look” for the Fine Arts Team

Audience 

My audience for the Critic’s Notebook template will be the people who often read The Post’s entertainment blog. We have a very strong following, especially in the classical music and dance world, so creating a cohesive design will only help bolster that following. It will also help set apart a Critic’s Notebook from a general review, so it will help people who aren’t familiar with this type of coverage to know they’re looking at something both different and special.

The audience for classical music skews a little older, so most still have a print edition. More often, however many reviews are only published online. The Fine Arts team has spoken about making an effort to showcase strong design skills for our very engaged base, but that hasn’t come to fruition yet. By creating a custom template for the Critic’s Notebook-style reviews, I hope to show that an audience who doesn’t necessarily get their news online can be coaxed there if something is presented in a new and interesting way. I also doubt that many of them will ever look at something on mobile, so the focus of this template is for a desktop.

How I’ll achieve my goals 

• I’ll start with my personal website by making a landing page with a few of my in-depth assignments from graduate school
• I’ll have an about page that explains how I got to the Post
• I’ll use a page to showcase the final project template
• Create a website that shows my work as a grad school student and media professional
• I’ll create a funny 404 page, because that’s become a space where people can be creative.

Theme: Twenty Seventeen

Track: Mostly front-end design, with some back-end modifications if necessary.

Planned modifications: 

• Changed fonts and colors on the Twenty Seventeen theme
• An area to show some of my video journalism work
• a stylized page to show a new-and-improved Critic’s Notebook template
• A 404 page that’s lighthearted and funny
• A cohesive design that shows a funny and serious side

URL: www.savvystephens.com