Update part 2

OK, so I've not managed to get my "proper" site up and running yet, other work commitments have had to take priority. But Thursday and Friday are MA days so I should be getting into the detail of it more. I've got a good idea about the general design for the main site and am developing work in Processing, Flash and Flickr. Scanned in sketches to come and links to Processing stuff should be uploaded tomorrow.

After discussions with Aidan and Ian and thinking about it the project looks like it will be divided into two separate areas. An MA Graphics/ Fine Art website that can develop with my input and other students. This could possibly be incorporated into the Creative Space website at some point in the future. The main focus at the moment is to break away from a standard "portfolio" web's at least on the homepage and main areas of the site. The second thing, after a brief discussion with Ian, will be some online promotion for the Graphics at Leeds website front page. I'm thinking this is where the Processing, Flash, Flickr and image searching side of the work I'm doing will develop. I'm also looking at some mobile technology.

For the MA site it needs to incorporate RSS feeding, image uploading, random image generation, ways of searching, downlodadable content etc. All the stuff in my proposal that I now is doable and I can have a basic idea of how to do it. For this the key thing will be the frontpage page, this will be pubicly accessible so presentation and ways of finding work is going to be key. Again breaking away from a fairly static webpage, at the moment I like the design of the Designers Lunchbox. Rolling, magazine type, layout, daily updates that type of thing. Areas of the site shouldn't be to specific and I need to think of ways of categorizing work. The site navigation will also be crucial. I think this were the Tufte/Harry Beck mapping research will come in to play.

For the online promotion side I have no idea at the moment until I get a real handle on Processing. If I can it doing something with a small database of images that would be good, but I don't know what yet.

Updates

I've not touched this blog since my MA presentation before Christmas. At the moment I'm working on bits and pieces in Processing. I've created a couple of simple sketches that involve looping and drawing random images and then restarting them with a mouse click or key command, simple stuff but quite satisfying as I've not done this before. Links to this work should be up in the next couple of days. I'm planning to develop this into a programme that could be used on the Leeds Met Creative Space website frontpage at some point. Not entirely sure what this is going to be yet.

I've got a some more webspace and a domain which will be hosting and archiving all the work I've done and am doing for the MA. I'm also going back through work I've done over the last ten years and cataloguing that. This will be the test site for what will hopefully/ eventually be a version of the MA Graphic Arts and Design site. I've got to have a rough version up and running in the next two or three weeks so I can play with it test and then pass it in onto others on the MA by easter.