Artistic rivalry of sorts
Sunday, 17 Aug 08
Nikon D80; Focal length: 18mm; Aperture value: F/3.5; Exposure time: 1/10 sec.; ISO speed: 200
I wax lyrical about delicious sunsets at 5PM. It’s when the sky is brilliantly alive and completely subliminal. But it’s not always that I have a camera with me. Some things are always about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right person.
But while we’re on “artistic” endeavors of sorts: Recently, in my Communications module for Architecture, I had to design an online portfolio. It’s all fine and dandy, right? Right, until you realize that you’re more knowledgeable than your tutor who’s been dishing it out for the past > 5 years to first year Architecture students. But let me tell you why:
- My tutor’s knowledge is entrenched in the standards and deprecated code of 6 years ago. From observation, he’s taken what he’s learned 6 years ago, and never bothered to acquaint himself with the new developments. For hobbyists, it’s acceptable, but for someone to be “qualified” to teach the blind minions in Architecture how to code, you should be at least informed of the semi-latest trends! Of course, he is teaching through Adobe Dreamweaver, but that still doesn’t excuse his lack of updated knowledge.
- His “concept” of a good design, and for that matter, a portfolio falls miles off the target. To me, a portfolio should be elegant. It should be functional and accessible to give your visitor the greatest ease of browsing. It should sport a design that is artistic but does not detract from the focus of your portfolio i.e., the content. Who’s with me? But what he calls a good design is one that’s overloaded with images, with text that is too small, simply because the blind minion can “OMG link images!”
Maybe I’m a tad bitter that my more functional, accessible and elegant website ranked lower than the image slapped websites. Ah well. I must do what I believe is right.
Have you ever wondered why doing what is right isn’t always what rewards you?
3 Responses
to Artistic rivalry of sorts
Thank you to all the following people who have left comments for this entry. It is greatly appreciated that you took the time to read, and comment on what I have had to say.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://jen.eloquensa.net/2008/08/17/artistic-rivalry-of-sorts/trackback/
Leave a Reply
to Artistic rivalry of sorts
I appreciate comments with some substance. .
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Academia, Snapshots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
1. Aranil
That’s not cool that your portfolio isn’t acepted for it’s content but rather, it’s layout- that’s just silly. As a photo/ceramics major, how the portfolio’s presented is judged just as much as the content in it. People like simple but what expresses the artist.
I am with you on that one.
2. Aneesah
True, you must do what you believe is right. I guess we just have to change our definition of “reward”, then. Maybe marks and ranks don’t mean as much as our own happiness, how pleased we are with the finished product. And, the outdated knowledge, on something that changes every day like web-developing — is just annoying! =/ Did … anybody point that out to the tutor? =X I can’t bear to think the next batch of students would have to endure the same thing. @_@
3. Lexie
Too true. I had a Web Development professor who once questioned me about my use of div floats for a layout for one of our projects. She asked me why I had to go through all the trouble of creating an external stylesheet when I could use tables instead.