Great strides have been made towards teaching web development, but what about design? The personal web design degree is an open education curriculum that teaches both beginning web designers and seasoned print designers design within the context of the web.
The personal web design degree is the response of one designer to the question “What do I need to study to become a web designer?” The truth is that all the information needed to obtain a functional knowledge of web design is out there just waiting to be read. The only thing stopping most designers from doing so is sifting through all the information and knowing what is worth reading.
Just the Beginning
Each section of the curriculum consists of the following elements:
A Reading List
Related Articles
Key Concepts
A Study Guide
A Review Quiz
As it currently stands the project needs a number of articles that help reinforce the skills outlined within each level of the curriculum. The skills to be covered within the levels of the curriculum are listed on the curriculum overview page or in my previous article “The State of Online Web Design Education.”
If you would like to help out please share links to some trustworthy articles on the skills covered in each of the curriculum levels. You can either post in the comments below, both which section you believe the article belongs in and a link to it, or visit the community forums of and post it there.
Using a poetry slam format, each panelist will present a five-minute poem or story about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. The audience will have ample opportunity to ask questions and respond.
Just as early filmmakers struggled to break free from the conventions of live theater, after 10+ years Web designers are still trapped in the structures of the past. Forget pages, linear text and other archaic vestiges of design’s print ancestry; the separation of content from presentation has already changed everything.
For students of design, honing your ability to draw from you “reserves” of creativity is important not only to communicate your message but from the perspective of a professional it’s imperative.
As a professional designer you are required to draw upon your creativity at a moments notice yet you will also quickly realize that many design agencies/firms still require you to be creative between the hours of 8AM and 5PM. Some companies have addressed this unusual requirement but many have not and to stay employed you must adapt.
But let’s be honest. Most designers are procrastinators on some level and usually knock out their best work in the eleventh hour. Is this your creative subconscious coming into play or is it just self-preservation more than self-actualizing?
Adam Singer’s post on how self-actualization of can relate to design and enhancing your creativity is very well thought out. Adam refers to Abraham Maslow the American psychologist noted for the concept of the self-actualized individual. Here are some of the characteristics.
They embrace reality and facts rather than denying truth.
They are spontaneous.
They are interested in solving problems.
They are accepting of themselves and also others and lack prejudice.
But how exactly do you tap your creative/inspirational reserves? There are a few methods I have experimented with that work well:
Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you.
Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses–and then finding the courage to give them up.
Maslow has made a case for natural, human goodness. Man is basically good, not evil, he has the capacity to be an efficient, healthy and happy person. But he must nurture the capacity with awareness, honesty, introspection and maintain his freedom: to freely respond to internal and external events, to be himself at all costs.
Scott Monty is the head of social media at Ford Motor Company(formally of crayon) and spends his time helping you with your questions about Ford (ala ComcastCares) but has recently been throwing out some wisdom on social networking/media.
After seeing the sheer amount of re-tweeting that’s been surrounding him today I thought I would share some of his quotes with you. Here are some I’ve complied.
“ROI is a campaign metric; Social Media is a commitment…. What’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?”
“LinkedIn is the business meeting; Facebook is the hallway conversation; Twitter is the cocktail party.”
“Coming down from the ivory tower every once in a while and interacting with your customers is an important aspect of any business. It’s so important not to lose touch with the people that actually touch and use your products, to hear what they have to tell you and to be open about receiving feedback.”
“Social media is a karmic business, and you have to give in order to receive. Share you knowledge and information freely. Create an ebook with valuable tips and give it away on your blog or site. Go out of your way to connect people and to show you’re willing to give something before you get something.”
“So when it’s time to make your own announcement, launch a campaign, or build awareness, you should ask yourself: what’s the most effective way of telling your story?”
If we remember the social in social architecture, we can continue to make new products that delight people as well as change their lives
Conflict: Who can you trust online?
Resolution: Give each user an identity, and then allow him to customize it as he sees fit. The identity allows the user to express his personality, and is typically accessed and protected via a unique log-in. Participation is rewarded by enhanced reputation and the ability to collect items in the system (bookmarks, history, relationships, and so on).
Conflict: On a website with thousands or millions of people, how do you make sure you can keep track of the people you care about?
Resolution: Create ways for people to identify, connect, and organize the people they care about, as well as the information those people produce. The complexity of relationship classification depends on how your customers will use your website.
Conflict: If there’s nothing to do on a site, then it doesn’t matter if all your friends are there or not. The site has no more interest than an address book, and it won’t get affection or traffic.
Resolution: Create activities that are useful to individuals but are much improved by group participation.
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