Saturday, September 17, 2005
Content v/s style
I've given the subject some thought lately and decied that, while content and stlye can be seperated (like in html and css), it shouldn't be. What made me really think about this is my friends business cards. He called me and said that he was having problems with people taking him seriously and thinks that it is partially his cards. They have a hand drawn logo printed on a home computer; they look bad. This made me think that we are judged on both the style and content of everything we do. In the case of the business cards, all the necessary info was there, but the way the card looked was it's downfall. In the same way, when we write for classes we are judged on both the content of the paper and the style we choose to follow(of that is chosen for us) whethet it be mla, apa, or whatever the journalism style is. These things are just as important as what we say. On the web style is just as important. If the web page looks amature or too dense we just skip in in favor of something that suits our needs. I don't think that there is one particular stlye that should be adhered to, otherwise the world would be a boring place. That's all I have to say for now.
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4 comments:
We've moved through it very quickly in class, but this is a very complicated debate that I'm thinking about a lot right now. Lots of people have written about it, in graphic design, writing, programming, and other fields.
Your post brings up a question nobody really raised so far: how can we differentiate, rigorously, between what is "form" and what is "content"?
Also, does separation of form and content on a code level mean that they are separated if we don't think about the code---for example, if we are just browsing?
I think that it is possible not to think about the code when "browsing" but it seems to me that even when browsing we are subconsciously aware that there is form and content and code. There has to be code to get the form and content, people like me who find all that confusing I think tend to on purpose not think about code. All the time though we are aware that of both the form and the content and that how they are not mutually exclusive. ALthough I can say that before this class i assumed that you made web sites on a clever little program that walked you through it like powerpooint or something and i for sure had no idea that there were two different things, html and css, that make a web page.
You can use a clever little program to make web sites; there are several on the computers in 309. We'll work with them later this semester, and you're free to try them at any time.
However, as you write, the code is always there, whether or not we deal with it. Because I want you to be critical users of computers and writing, we need to see it, so we can discuss it.
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