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Pitch (Perfect)

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This week we worked on creating galleries on GitHub, which was something I thought I understood in class but lacked the same confidence when it was time to do the assignment. Thankfully, some of my classmates paid better attention and was able to explain everything to me. I am still working on becoming familiar with GitHub since this is going to be something we rely on heavily for our final project. I am pretty excited about the midterm assignment because researching, interviewing and writing are some of my strong suits, so I plan to do really well on this assignment. How I found the subject of my midterm is actually pretty funny, I searched ‘web developer’ on LinkedIn and was scrolling through people who mentioned that phrase when I came across a particularly quirky post. As a visual learned and Hallmark and Lifetime movie buff, I instantly saw the words come to life in my head. As she described the day she decided to become a coder, she was in her pajamas covered in floor from a baking mishap. The story instantly intrigued me, so I connected with her and sent her a message asking to meet with her. Outside of her possible movie opener as a hook to her LinkedIn post, she interested me because she did not have a background in coding or engineering but within a year she was pretty successful in her career as a web developer. I connected with her because I have literally no background in coding or web development, but it is pretty inspiring to see someone who is where I am today, last year has really made web development her passion and career. I won’t tell you much more, because I don’t want to spoil my assignment, but I am excited and think everyone else in the class will enjoy it as well.

Final Project Pitch for Personal Site

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For our final project, my goal is to create a personal site to showcase my academic and professional experience to potential employers, who will be my main audience. I envision the site containing several sections: an about me page, a copy of my resume (in a format I can easily and frequently update), a section for work and writing samples, and one for contact and social media information. Overall, I would like the site to have a simple, clean-cut feel and be easy-to-navigate, particularly the section of my writing samples. I would also like to include a section for a small book review blog. I would like the blog, like the rest of the site, to be easy to navigate based on genres or authors.

In terms of custom features, one feature I would like to include is a rotating gallery on each page comprised of travel photos I’ve taken. Once I find a WordPress theme that would best help me get the clean, simple look I want, I will modify the CSS code to fit with that overall look.

Goals:  

  • To create a functional and complete personal site to showcase my academic and professional experience.
  • To effectively showcase my writing skills and previous work experience to potential employers.
  • To create a simple, clean-cut, and easy-to-navigate site that is logically organized.

Audience:  The site will be geared toward potential employers, and my blog will be geared toward fellow book-lovers, probably young millennials like me.  

How I Will Achieve My Goal:

  • Modify the theme to create a multi-section site with pages for an about me section, a copy of my resume, a page for work and writing samples, and a page for contact and social media information.
  • Create a side-blog and include at least one blog post to start.
  • Create a custom post-type for book reviews for the blog, as well as a metadata box for my current read.
  • Find a way to have visitors interact with the blog, like maybe a “what should I read next?” survey visitors can vote on or a rating system.

Theme: I plan to use Twenty Seventeen.


Track: full-stack

Planned modifications:

  • I would like to create a custom post type for book reviews on my small side blog which will include a field for number of pages, favorite quotes, and some type of rating system.
  • I would also like to experiment with creating a custom metadata box that will allow me to update any post I make to my blog with what I am currently reading, i.e. a “currently reading” or “current book” field.
  • I would like to see if I can figure out a way to have users interact with my blog by creating a survey where they can vote on the next book I’ll read and review.
  • I would like to create a self-rotating gallery on my main page of photos I’ve taken.

URL: tatyanaberdan.com

Christina Cauterucci: portfolio site

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My final project site will showcase my professional work and personal projects in a portfolio sort of format. When someone Googles me, I want this to be the first result that pops up. I want the Googler to be able to go to this one website and find all the professionally relevant information that I want them to know about me, rather than letting them peruse links and assign importance to my web projects at random. As I look to a new career start in the next few months, controlling my web presence seems paramount. And why bother building a portfolio website and claiming web coding skills if the website itself doesn’t show them off?

I haven’t decided whether I want my site’s homepage to be a blog with frequent updates on my professional and personal projects or a graphic grid featuring the portfolio items of which I’m most proud. Either way, the site will include both of these pages in addition to an “about me” page, a CV/resume, links to my web projects/embedded videos and ways to connect with me on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I hope to make the site sleek and edgy and involve some interesting interactive movement with Javascript/jQuery.

URL: christinacauterucci.com

Description: This site will house the work I’m most proud of and offer a glimpse of the “professional” me with links to clips, my resume, etc.

Goals:

– Control my web presence
– Make it easy for folks to find information about me
– Offer a proof point of my limited web coding skills
– Create a visually appealing array of videos and images

Audience: I hope that potential employers, clients, partners and people who are interested in my work and side projects will visit the site.

How I’ll achieve my goals:

– Make some kind of grid or slideshow of my projects
– Include an “about me” page and my resume
– Have an “in the news” page or tab for photos or clips of instances when my projects have been covered in the media

Theme: Eureka

Planned modifications (ambitious):

– I want to make each “post” bubble into what would normally be a page (about, clips, etc) – creating essentially a one-page website with anchor tags to move up and down the page. I would need to learn how to make a floating taskbar, so…we’ll see.
– Cosmetic revamp: changing up the color scheme; making the post bubbles wider, a little less round and maybe have a thinner border; getting rid of the tabs on each post that have an icon of a piece of paper on them or whatever media the post contains.
– Create a grid of some sort with uniform icon-sized images that expand when clicked, for visual/video projects.

Veoni Vine

4 Replies

I had every intention of doing a portfolio website for my final project. I thought that improving my amateur-looking WordPress site would be the best use of my time. But after diving into HTML, CSS and JavaScript (cringe), I quickly realized that it would be more fun to build a site that incorporated all new content and focused on a true passion of mine.

Wine!

My husband and I like to think that we have a fairly exclusive wine collection, especially for a couple of 28-year-olds. We even have a few bottles that aren’t supposed to be opened for another 15-20 years. With that long of a wait, it’s difficult to remember where we got it, what food goes well with the wine, what year we should open it, etc. And let’s face it, in 20 years my memory is just going to get worse. So… my idea is to create an online wine cellar that houses all of our elite bottles with images, descriptions and food pairings. In addition to the wine cellar, the website would include a blog so I could document my wine experiences (such as visiting a winery, enjoying a good bottle of wine at dinner, highlighting a new local wine maker, etc.).

As far as the audience, my husband and I will benefit most from the site, at least at the beginning. But I plan on linking to blog posts from my social media channels so other people will know about the website. And who knows, maybe one day there will be a paid Virginia winery ad on the homepage. #winedreams

Post Updates
veonivine.com
Description: Veoni Vine will feature images and descriptions of my personal wine collection, as well as highlight my various wine experiences through custom blog posts.
Goals:
-Have a digital wine cellar that features prominent bottles from Italy and the US.
-Write blog posts to document my wine experiences (winery trips, dinners, etc.)
-Generate followers and encourage people to share comments on the blog posts.
Audience: My husband and I, friends and family, and hopefully other wine enthusiasts.
Achieving goals: I plan on using a WordPress template that is simple and is easily customizable. To ensure everything is organized nicely, I plan on creating custom post types. I also plan on sharing the website through social channels to drive awareness.
Theme: Magazine Basic (http://wordpress.org/themes/magazine-basic)
Functionality & Design:
-Create a child theme
-Develop a custom post type and taxonomies for ‘region’ and ‘year’
-Change the look of the theme by altering CSS code
-Import social media widget
-Add content (at least five collection bottles with images and descriptions, and one post highlighting winery experience).

Capricia Alston

3 Replies

My vision for my website is still to create an online portfolio. I want it to include the work that I’ve done while in this program, as well as clearly display that I know how to design a website. In order for me to show the latter, I’m hoping to make drastic changes to a common theme page and make it my own. Along with this class, I’m taking Reporting in the Field, so by the end of the semester I will have tons of pictures I’ll want to share on my site. I plan to have a gallery on there from the trip we take as well as a section of my video clips.

I plan for my focus to mainly be on the development rather than the design/look because I’ll be taking web design next semester and will continue to add to my site the more I learn. However, I do want to be able to show that I know how to create an interactive site, so I’ll definitely have buttons and a couple of other designs that need to be clicked or hovered over in order to function. If I leave this class with a site that is clearly mine, displays quality work and requires a few clicks here and there, then I will be completely satisfied with the progress that I’ve made.

UPDATE POST:

URL: capricia.alston@gmail.com

 

UPDATE POST:

URL: capricia.alston@gmail.com

Description: My site will include any and all work that I’ve done or have been involved with while in this program.

Goals:

  • Have something beyond a resume for employers to have access to
  • Prove that I am capable of managing and troubleshooting a website
  • Finally have one place that all of my recent work is stored
  • Make a site that I’m proud of
  • Eventually this transitions to a site that attracts sports enthusiasts as well

Audience:

My primary audience will be employers or people curious about me and my work. Hopefully I will be able to expand that to sports enthusiasts also. This expansion will only occur once I have the basics of my site and how it works understood.

Conceptual Level:

  • I will have a gallery of pictures I’ve taken, focused around the New Mexico trip I’ll be taking in three weeks
  • The option to view my resume will be one of the header options on my page
  • An About Me page
  • I will have a section of videos I’ve edited or done stand-up
  • Eventually I will have a blog section as well which will be centered around sports

Theme:

Custom Community – http://wordpress.org/themes/custom-community

Modifications:

  • I will definitely be changing the entire color scheme and designs at the top of the page. Still debating if I want the top of the page to be a photo
  • I want to make the pictures on the side expand when the mouse is hovering over it.
  • Find an appropriate place to import my Twitter posts

Jennings Final Project Pitch

5 Replies

I have changed gears for my final project idea. I wanted to do something with video editing, but now I am thinking that is a bit too specialized and more work than I expect to be able to complete in a semester. I still would like to fiddle with it once I get better with the languages, but not for now.

I am looking to build a blog site for sports that can be customized. I think of it as a portfolio of sorts for me, as I ultimately want to write about sports and I think I could customize it to have some cool interactivity on it. I envision adding a section that aggregates tweets that reference the blog or certain sporting events (like the Stanley Cup Finals currently) on a rolling ticker on the right, and then content and allowing for video and pictures to be uploaded directly by me or other admins.

I want to keep the content to small chunks on the main page, with a “read more…” link similar to what WordPress already does, and make it so that the front page always keeps some pictures and videos static in place (not necessarily the same pic or video, but the same place on the page) to ensure that the page is visually appealing on first view.

So that is where I am starting from, with changes to be made at irregular intervals according to the whims of Greg, me, or the gremlins in the code.

Milagro Cleaning

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I purchased the domain www.milagrocleaning.com for my family’s home cleaning business. My mother has created a really great business starting from one home to now having a list of over 50 homes in the Northern Virginia area through word of mouth. Her clients over the past twenty years have included former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and current CNN corespondent Wolf Blitzer. With a booming housing market, sellers have finally started to see a return on their investment by selling their homes. Unfortunately, this has created a higher than average customer attrition for my family’s business. With references and word of mouth tapping out, we’re turning to the online space to gain customers and fill the gaps in the schedule.

This website should meet two goals; It should create more clients for my family’s business, and it should create an online revenue stream to pay off the cost of building it and having it hosted. The websites audience should be home owners that are looking for professional home cleaning services in the Northern Virginia area. There are specific areas in Northern Virginia that we would like to target over others, like Arlington and Alexandria as opposed to Sterling, Fairfax, and Burke. I look at the project as another one of my personal clients, and a source of revenue by creating a website that has the space to either sell affiliate products through a shop page or selling sponsored blog posts. The website should have a responsive and clean design that showcases great looking houses visually. I hope to use the skills I have learned in this web development course to show off and grow my family’s business.

URL: www.milagrocleaning.com

Description: A website that will provide an alternative to big brand chain home cleaning companies.

Goals:

  • Create a website that coverts traffic into leads (Receive calls for home cleaning estimates)
  • Design that illustrates clean lines and is responsive to mobile
  • Site that incorporates visual assets to create self made reputation
  • Encourage content creation and addition by admin users.

Audience: The website should attract web traffic from Northern, Virginia home owners interested in home cleaning service.

Measurement:

  • Internal linking structure that guides users to a contact form page.
  • A bright website that has clean lines throughout and looks equally as attractive on mobile and tablet as it does on desktop.
  • Use social network APIs to integrate visual assets into the website (Flickr/Instagram)
  • Create custom boxes/inputs in “Portfolio” post type to facilitate addition of content

Theme: BigBang

Draft List:

  • Create a custom input box in the “Portfolio” post type
  • Slow down main page rotator to increase the time an image is displayed to a user
  • Add sharing functionality to pages to encourage content virility
  • Create custom form to grab necessary information
  • Effectively use categories and tags to create hierarchal structure
  • Change colors throughout as necessary to coincide with already established logo/brand
  • Edit as I see fit