This blog has been around for awhile now (current design has been up over a year) and our department is growing. To be proactive, I'm redesigning this blog with a few ideas in mine to give us room for our current needs as well as future ones. However, this being YOUR blog I want to hear from SEQA-ATL students on what they love about the Temple blog and what they'd like to see changed or added. Bring on the suggestions! This is your time to directly guide the Temple's new content! Go on, comment away!
Nolan
200th POST!!!
11 comments:
I think right now the Temple blog is in a pretty good place, and I'm actually liking all the showcasing of upper-level class work to keep all the students in the loop as to what their fellow students are working on, one thing I think is pretty fun about this major in general is the eagerness of most of the students to get to really know eachother and bounce ideas around and everything. It's very warm and intellectually open. Keep the sketch challenges around for sure, and whatnot.
Maybe some kind of outlet for open discussion between students in regards to their methods, sort of like... I dunno, a weekly question pertaining to to creative processes open to all the students to talk about? I don't know, I'm having a hard time with words because I'm not super alert right now, but hey!
Oooh.. I like that idea Audrey. Being that i'm not around scad anymore.. I'd still like to be able to hear about what new tools and methods people are using.I like the idea of a weekly question or how about even a sort of secondary sketch challenge with a piece of pre-existing art. Like "How would -you-color this page "insert comic page here"?" But overall I think the current temple layout works quite well. Hope I helped.
I like the weekly question idea too, Audrey! Is it possible to have another column on one side, like on the right side, just for a weekly discussion, or maybe to do that with the sketch challenge?
Other than that, the only things that I feel need updating every time I visit the temple page are the "Get Published" links, which are a couple of years old. I really like having the members and friends links available at the top of the page, though, and I like being able to stay up to date with other SCAD student's work through the temple page. Overall the blog works pretty well.
I'm thinking we need more that one student spotlight. Though the sketch challenges help with showcasing student work, not many of the students have the time to produce quality sketches along with the amount of work they already have for class. (which could be the reason why not that many students participate.) Maybe just the way we do in the hallway of the school, when students do good work in class, instead of spotlighting one student for a month you spotlight a couple of the best concepts/ pages/ designs from classes. I feel like then students would at least be a little more eager to participate.
Domo is onto something here. A showcase of student work is a fantastic idea! And I can easily begin to do spotlights once a quarter or more rather than twice a year. We finally have a student body large enough for that.
A discussion area would be great so I'll look into what I can do about that too.
Keep the suggestions coming!
I was thinking to display the student's artwork in a different way, especially those who submitted to sketch challenges. Using the gallery/art board format seen on Nolan's blog. It can be easier for visitors to review a week's challenge of multiple images using that setup instead of clicking on individual images. I do not know how much work goes into that type of setup but that is my idea for now.
As far as the weekly question. I'll throw a wrench in there (like I always do). We might run into the same problem we have with the sketch challenges. If things feel weekly, then there's either a stressful rush to do something for that weekly topic, or post something on an old topic that doesn't seem important/relevant anymore. But I see a nugget of an idea in there that is shining like a great idea.
Instead of a 'weekly question', I would propose a discussion board purposed for specific topics like Materials or Processes. That way, I don't have to wait for a weekly topic about brushes. I can just go find the brush topic and spill my heart out about a new brush. (Or whatever material/technique it happens to be). I don't know what kind of options there are in Blogger about building a 'Forum' type page.
As for my own ideas:
I really love seeing the art from our community, and since that's what most of our hits are for, I'd say it's the most important part of our blog. Featured art needs to be one of the first pages (if not the home page) that you see.
Nolan - when you're laying out the artwork on the table to make sure it fits on the bulletin board, maybe you could take a couple snap shots of the whole layout and have those as posts, so that what's featured on the board can also make a web appearance.
Other aspects that I like to see, and possibly other people enjoy it as well, are the posts relating to the Community and posts for Events.
Those topics are less important for fans of the blog, but they're important for us as students or Alum. So I'm just proposing that you have to navigate to those pages in order to see that info. That way people coming to the blog only see artwork unless they're interested in our community in particular.
I like the Members and Friends drop-down menus, but Get Published and Verse Reading aren't updated that much. So I don't think they need their own buttons along that prime real estate.
All good suggestions! Keep them coming!
I'm an e-learning student and I definitely read the blog to see what is going on at school (since I live out of state). I would love to have more ways to participate somehow and interact with my classmates outside of classes.
One think I would like to see is generic sketch challenges (without licensed characters)- that way it could become a portfolio piece or something that could be used elsewhere.
Hi, Meredith! You can always request a sketch challenge subject by leaving a comment on any sketch challenge post.
Hey Nolan, I know Concept Art does have its own degree, but would it be possible to get some concept art like sketch challenges? I know the current challenges are really expressive to begin with..being that they are really up to us to work out.. but.. well.. I like concepting things besides characters *nod*.
Or we could even start pulling from movies! Sketch challenge this week is "Back to the Future" Just tossing things around in my noggin.
And I really like the idea of making a reel of the sketch challenges to run at the top of the page, it would be neat.
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