Web Strategy and Development Blog

Inside Missouri State Microsite Launched

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Earlier this month, the University launched a microsite,  Inside Missouri State, that correlates with the Undergraduate Admissions Guide. This was a collaborative project between the Offices of Admissions, Web and New Media and Publications.

Inside Missouri State HomepageInside Advantage Section

A few highlights:

  • This new site is meant to be a standalone, self-contained microsite. It’s like a advertisement about Missouri State. We link out to several standard Missouri State web pages, but the design used on this microsite will not be reused elsewhere.
  • The content within the microsite was repurposed from the printed Undergraduate Admissions Guide. This allowed us to reuse a lot of excellent content that Admissions and Publications had already produced and coordinated.
  • There are five marketing message videos, one for each of the first five sections of the site. There are also videos for the spotlights on the left of these sections. The video work was done by Brad Mitchell and student Carlynn Forst, with script help from Michelle Rose.
  • The design was done by Lindsay Winchester, in coordination with Veronica Adinegara’s printed Viewbook designs. Additional support was provided by student Dustin Jacobs.
  • The coding of the site was done by student Ray Lehnhoff, with oversight by Chad Killingsworth and Sara Clark.
  • The main route into this microsite is from the Admissions homepage, which has a new Flash element that links into the microsite.
  • Many of the features of this microsite can be reused in other sites, such as the spotlight videos which are in iTunesU and can be used within Web Press.

University departments are welcome to point their future undergraduate students to the Inside Missouri State microsite.

Adobe Creative Suite Tips & Tricks

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We recently attended the one-day CompuMaster Seminar on using the Adobe Creative Suite. Here are some highlights of the tips and tricks we learned.

Illustrator’s Pixel Preview Mode: When you save artwork in a web format such as JPEG, GIF, or PNG, Illustrator rasterizes the artwork at 72 pixels per inch. You can preview how your images will appear when rasterized by choosing View > Pixel Preview. This is especially helpful to see how the anti-aliasing of an image will look once it is posted online.

Adding metadata to your images in Bridge: Bridge allows you to add information about your images or projects in the form of metadata or tags. This is especially helpful if you have a large collection of files and you often have to search through your image collection to find specific images. Bridge acts as a file manager and can keep all of your images and projects organized.

Photomerge in Photoshop: The updated Photomerge command combines several photographs into one continuous image, also known as blending or stitching. For example, you can take five overlapping photographs of a skyline, and then have Photoshop automatically assemble them into a panorama image. There is also a geometric distortion correction filter that allows you to fix the perspective of the images caused by a vertical or horizontal camera tilt.

Setting preferences in Indesign: Editing preferences can be done in such a manner to apply those preferences only to the document currently being edited or so they apply as defaults for all documents. If preferences are set with a document open they will apply only to that document. If no document is open when preferences are changed they become Indesign defaults.

Acrobat and Reader tips: To prevent copy/paste of text in a PDF use a searchable image. When creating a form in Acrobat use the Auto Field Detection wizard. Beginning with version 8, the reader product is now called Adobe Reader. Enable usage rights to allow Adobe Reader to update and save PDF files. Always leave form field fonts at Auto to prevent long input from being truncated.

Flash tips: Convert your existing video files to Flash video format (FLV) for files better optimized for web playback. Consider using the Flash Import Video Wizard. Photoshop and Illustrator images can be imported into Flash and retain their original layers.

Recent Flash Work

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I wanted to highlight some recent Flash animations I’ve done for the university. These are large files and the sizes don’t really jive with this blog, so I’ll be linking to the animations.

First is the new intro for the JQH Arena. This is a splash page that will play before going on to the main site. This will be featured a week before the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 24th, and stay online until early December.

Also in September I created a Flash animation for the university’s Admissions page. This is a reworking of material from our View Book, and acts as a kind of mini-version of the View Book. This is on the Admissions homepage and will be featured for the forseeable future.

WDUG Kicks Off Fall Series with Web Press Session

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The first Web Developers Users’ Group (WDUG) session for the Fall 2008 series will be held September 18, 2008, from 10-11 AM in Plaster Student Union Traywick Parlimentary Room.

The session will focus on Web Press Tips and Tricks. Brian Heaton, Content Management Programmer/Analyst for the Office of Web and New Media, will demonstrate new features available within Web Press:

  • Using the new table of contents layout and making favorites
  • Adding Flash content to your web site
  • Editing a web page that someone else already has in draft status

This session is open to any web developer of a University unit, course or sponsored organization. Registration is not necessary.

The fall series will also include a session in November about creating blogs using Word Press. Details will be available on the WDUG web page in the coming weeks.