What I decided to do as my final project for DGST101!
How I created my final project and covered everything we learned in class.
Firstly, I would like to say that I’ve learned so incredibly much from this class, and I can’t thank my professor, Mr. Berge, enough for teaching me so much throughout this semester that I will undoubtedly take with me beyond this course.
Now, as far as my final project is concerned, I decided to build out my main domain as a way to market myself as well as my digital identity and abilities for future employers, internships, coworkers, etc. I decided on this because I felt it was extremely important (as noted by UMW’s Digital Knowledge Center) to always be aware of what pops up when searching your name. This is important because it’s common for employers to Google and look through their possible employee prospects on social media as well. I’ve actually seen the Director at my current job do this with potential employees. You would be incredibly surprised how much your presence on the internet sways your position in getting a job or not! Therefore, I decided to take control of this by creating my website in a professional and welcoming light.
The inspiration for the palette of my website came from a wonderful photographer, Heather Kincaid. I really liked how her website was moody but sophisticated at the same time. I loved the color scheme, and I wanted my website’s aesthetic to match these ideas. You can view Heather’s website, Kincaidphotoco.com, here.
Additionally, I would also like to note that the layout of my website may change slightly depending on if you’re viewing it on a laptop or desktop computer. I unfortunately didn’t think to check the difference in how my design would look on a desktop computer versus my laptop that I had been editing on until today, (12/11). Therefore, I highly recommend viewing my website on a laptop if you’re able!
Accessibility on My Website
How I addressed accessibility on my main domain
After learning the importance of accessibility, I wanted to make sure that it was one of my top priorities when creating my main domain’s website. I was able to do this by adding ALT text and captions to all of my images throughout my website – this includes all of my photo galleries and digital editing projects as well. Additionally, I made sure to make use of all correct heading structure (H1 & H2 specifically) on each of my different main menu pages. These main menu pages consist of my home/landing page, the “about me” page and the “contact me” page.
Additionally, when mentioning where any of my photos/images came from, I made sure to make a link accessible to the original website. This is shown when I addressed what platforms I used to edit my photos, digital editing projects and my audio/video works. I also made use of this when I showed where I got many of my images from – mostly all of them came from the copy-right free site, Pixabay.com.
I also found high color contrast to be important. It was a bit trickier to make sure I had high color contrast with the “moody” color scheme I chose. Therefore, I decided to make all of my text black – to ensure there wouldn’t be difficulty when reading the content of my website.
Lastly, the video and audio projects that I added onto my website under “video and audio works” both have accessible transcripts and closed captioning.
My Project Site is Complete and Polished!
How I ensured my website had a “put together” appearance.
I did a lot of my own research on how to make my website look as professional as possible. I found a YouTube video entitled, “How To Make A STUNNING Portfolio Website with WordPress”. This video had step-by-step instructions (along with help from the Digital Knowledge Center) on how to use Plugins on my website. Therefore, I used the Plugin, “Elementor” to create many of the visual appearances on my website. Elementor was very user-friendly, and I love the way it made my website turn out!
I replaced all of the default headers, images, pages and posts with new ones. I did not add a header image (as Mr. Berge said it was okay in our Zoom meeting) because I wanted to go with a very simplistic look – and I felt a header image would crowd and overwhelm the website with the specific ideal I had in mind for my main domain. However, I did create a new favicon for my main domain. I made this favicon with Adobe Illustrator and I used my previous favicon from dgst101.summersthoughts.com as a basis for my new design. I wanted to recreate this favicon in a more mature and simplistic light. Therefore, I got rid of the thought bubbles, and turned the bright yellow into a more neutral and moody beige color that would match the aesthetic of my main domain. Additionally, I changed the font of the “S.T.” for Summer’s Thoughts into another font that would match the main fonts of my website. Lastly, I made the favicon with a transparent background instead of a white background, and I love that look!
I also made sure to give appropriate credit to my DGST101 and my ARTS104 professors, Mr. Berge and Mr. Robinson for giving me the skills and projects to be able to have content for my main domain! I also included a section with my video and audio page about UMW’s Digital Knowledge Center for being so helpful and having my audio project on their website! I would also like to note that I didn’t use any AI on my website, so I did not credit that anywhere. Speaking of credit, I also have my copyright statement located in the footer of my website. I chose the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 statement for my main domain. I chose this particular one due to the fact that I wanted to ensure that ALL of my projects if displayed elsewhere or used in any capacity would give credit back to myself. This is important to me because since this is located on my portfolio website/main domain, I would appreciate anyone who sees my work to be able to trace it back to me and contact me if necessary. Of course, I wanted to allow others to still build upon my work, because if I wasn’t able to do so, a lot of my content wouldn’t exist! Therefore, I wanted to allow the same accessibility for other’s creativity. I found this copyright statement from the copyright-chooser.
After many drafts and moving content around, I believe I made my website in the capacity that it can hold all of my images, videos, and audio projects in a way that allows them to be displayed in a manner of high-quality content. However, I would like to note – some of my personal photos may appear a bit grainy due to the way the photos were edited by the photographer – and has nothing to do with being uploaded improperly.
Thank you all again for a wonderful semester and I can’t wait to see what my fellow DGST101 peers have come up with! Here is the link to my main domain, summersthoughts.com – I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed developing it!