Week 9
Download the Lesson Files:
.sit or .zip
Week 1: The Freehand MX Interface
In class exercise: The wrench.
Assignment- Create a simple personal geometric logo using circles, squares and lines. (10%)
Week 3- Functional design : Symbols and Instances:
Assignment: Using paper, create a linear drawing of your personal home page.(10%)
Week 4- Functional Design: Importing bitmaps into FreeHand MX
Assignment: Create a comp of your personal Home Page in FreeHand MX (10%)
Assignment: Locate a logo that is particularly effective and be prepared to present it to the class.
Explain why it is so effective.
What message does it convey?
Are there any potential design issues involving its use in web media and what would you do to resolve those issues. (5%)
Week 6- Dimensions of design: Logo creation in FreeHand
Assignment: Create a personal set of letters in FreeHand spelling out your last name. The largest inside square can be no more than ¼ of the full size letter and the maximum number of inside squares is 3.(10%)
Assignment: Create a personal typographic logo. (10%)
Week 9- Form and Structure: Grid-based interface design.
Assignment: Create an MP3 Player(10%)
Week 10- Icons and Symbols: Developing iconic interfaces for use in web pages and mobile devices.
Week 11- Interface elements
Pop down menus and gif animations in Fireworks.
Week 12- 13- The Email Interface project
Linears: 10%
Comprehsive:15 %
Weeks 14 and 15 will be presentations of presentations of project work done in class. 20%
Video tour of the FreeHand Interface
Here's an Aqua button:
In this exercise we build an MP3 Player Interface using the files from Practical Web Projects Magazine Volume 14.
The in-class exercise shows you how to plan an interface project, identify the assets needed to complete the project and how to organize workflow for efficient production.
The supplied files show you how to take the next step and actually build a player in Flash MX. The key is the way Flash MX communicates with an XML file.
XML is quite similar to HTML but the difference is XML lets you create customizable tags that are able to be read by people and computers. The XML file, therefore, allows you to easily update the file to accomodate changes you may make at a later date. The filke contains two pieces of information- the track name and the path to the track.. This is quite handly because Flash will call the XML file and then know where to go to for the track when playing it.
The volume slider is really easy to under stand. the length of the asset is going to represent the volume of the tack. Flash will track the location of the knob on the slider and always look at its location as a percentage of the distance to the end of the asset. If the knob is at the midway point of the slider Flash will say its location is the 50% mark. It will then take that value-50%- and apply it to the sound volume of the computer.
The finished files, including appropriate Actionscript are available for download.