the website can be found here!

the presentation slides and notes can be found in the ‘website/presentation group’ folder in the google drive.

working on the website slash presentation has been a lot of fun and i feel much more suited to my skill sets and interests rather than doing the virtual tour (which seems to be coming together really amazingly). imogen, ellen, jess and i have worked really well together. there have been no fights and no qualms. we have all delegated ourselves tasks, with each person equally picking up the pieces and aiding in making any spelling corrections or fixing up small technicalities such as image placement or mismatched fonts and colour schemes on the website.

originally, we had separated into people doing the presentation and those doing the website but after the loss of linh, we all just banded back together and all have delegated certain tasks regarding both aspects.

our initial issue was creating a logo. we were not allowed to use the rmit  logo, despite it being a work for rmit and i don’t even think we were allowed to use the “rmit red” colour. so that was our first setback, so ellen took to try create a new logo incorporating a ghost into our ‘ghosts of rmit’ title, i added little points and suggestions but ellen was the main graphic designer for this logo. this was also a point of confusion as we got to the point where we were unsure whether our course was called ghosts and spaces or ghosts of rmit. but in the end, we came up with a super funky and cute (and only slightly copying a logo from the internet) logo.  

during one of our productive monday classes, rachel hired the canon 5d cameras for us as well as the video cameras and light sets so we could get a strong feel for it and get to know the equipment that we have available to us. both jess and i were taking candid shots of the class on the cameras, thinking it would be great to use them for our presentation to show the whole media cohort how hands on, practical and tech-savvy we all are, but we caught jess in the right light with the led background and decided it would be a great time to do headshots of the class for the website!

the side wall of our classroom has a black felt pinboard and i thought it’d be perfect backdrop for these headshots, which would undoubtedly be classy, arty and slightly pretentious.

so i set up the tripod and became the school photographer (which i feel could be a future profession, i was in my prime – bossing people around). we did test shots with jess who made it easy because she’s so photogenic and then got everyone in the mix.

steph and i decided we should get everyone doing a “we’re serious artists” pose but also something fun and quirky that represents our fun, if not usually introverted, personalities.

i really enjoyed taking everyone’s photos because they truly turned out so nicely. the lighting was wonderful and once i had edited them and put them in black and white and adjusted the contrast they truly turned out very nice, if i do say so myself. we’re all such a photogenic bunch! i sense a new profile picture and/or instagram pic for everyone.

in the meantime, imogen had set up a really cool theme and colour scheme for our website as well as adding all the pages such as creator pages and building pages. once we decided on the theme and added the logo to it, it really started coming together. we added some photos and i added the photos and bios that each person wrote onto the creator pages as well as links to the blogs. finally, i wrote some copy for the website, including a bio for building 16, additions to the creators page as well as for the places page.  it was really amazing being able to see all our hard work finally coming to life.

i think now, looking back on the ideas we were tossing around when we first began formulating this website compared to where we are now and what we’ve produced, it’s interesting to see how everything we had before probably week 9 was almost completely scrapped. we made major adjustments and in my opinion upped our game.

i’m really proud of what we accomplished on the website, which we’re still adding to as everyone’s complete works come through. it’s easy to navigate, not overwhelming with content, attractive and appealing and clearly set out, with the right amount of information so as for visitors to not be scratching their heads wondering what this is all about.

if i were to complete the creation of the website again, i would obviously aim to have everything done sooner, but i say that with every piece of work that has ever had a deadline. while we did rely a lot on the works of others to be able to complete this website, i think we could have been a little bit more proactive in ensuring they all sent things to us by an exact date, so as to not be chasing people around asking for this and that from them. overall, i think as a team we worked amazingly well together, with no major issues and a consistent readiness to learn from each other, help each other out and look at things with a critical eye.

i will continue to add more content to the website as each student completes their work and as more content comes in.

overall, i’ve really enjoyed this assessment and being able to be part of a team that put it together.