A Break in the Action

The Web never sleeps, but universities are fond of taking breaks as though there is some need for refuge in the midst of so much rigor and ardor!

Thus we went on spring break during the last gasps of winter and returned on the first day of spring, which was still wearing its disguise of winter.

Our final days before the break focused on Actionscript for Flash, a useful code or language that can add a layer of functionality to the Flash presentations that go beyond the traditional drag and drop orientation of object manipulation.

Now after our break in the action we venture into deeper levels of authoring, such as exploring CSS style code and web authoring tools such as Frontpage and Dreamweaver. We can begin to look at design, the use of tables to control space or style sheet templates to make web authoring more efficient aand uniform.

Unfortunately, there may be too much emphasis on unformity, or what might be regarded as official or traditional perspectives on how a cyberspace ought to be designed. Going through many blogs, I see a definite rebellion against the "official" looks promoted by stylesheets and the like...especially among younger webbites. There has been a grand tendancy to minimalist values, to game strategies, to tiny, tiny, tiny, tinier type.

Ultimately we are alone with our thoughts and our designs, but there is a public lurking out there...eaves dropping on our designs...maybe with designs on our designs. If the medium is the message, then design may say it all. What is the relationship of content to design? Is that important?