Words can not describe how happy I was to have a Monday morning all to myself, as class was canceled due to Prof. Felix’s working trip to Hanoi. Nevertheless, I still turned up at RMIT as early as usual.

The 2 main goals for this week in terms of my progress in Making Media is: 1. Finish editing the second draft of my team’s podcast and 2. Choose a suitable web builder and get started on the homepage of my website.

To my surprise, it only took me less than 3 hours to achieve the first goal. Drawing upon Prof. Felix’s feedback on our first draft podcast, I was able to cut our podcast down to just over 5 minutes, effectively halving the length. Thanks to our re-record session last Thursday, we were also able to achieve much better audio quality and naturalness, which helped make the podcast feel more authentic. I also made use of a tutorial sent by Prof. Felix to generate a telephone effect, which added to the variety of our podcast.

Unlike the first one, my second goal turned out to be a lot more time-consuming to achieve. This was mainly due to my inability to settle with any web builder. While most of my classmates chose to use Wix, I felt that it was simply too simple and limiting. 

Given the user-friendly nature of Wix, it does not inform me of how the website is actually structured, but rather glosses over the technical details to pursue a canvas-like approach. As someone who has been intrigued by good web design and development for a while, I felt the need to switch to a more technically demanding web builder so that I can better learn the ins and outs of this practice. 

The first two options I had in mind was Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Muse, which turned out to be a little more complicated than what I was expecting. Without a doubt, these softwares are great tools, but they simply were not for someone with just over half a semester left to learn and use. 

I also looked into Squarespace, but this platform restricted me to the use of their templates, which were pretty but did not feel individual. In the end, I chose Webflow, a website builder that I came across on a Youtube video months ago. 

Webflow is marketed as a no-code web builder that unlocks the power of HTML and CSS to designers who are not familiar with coding. Thankfully, it was exactly what it had been advertised - a platform that allows users to manipulate code visually. This was what drew me into Webflow, as I could clearly understand the structure behind my website when looking at its editor. Furthermore, it also allowed me to design responsively across multiple breakpoints (desktops, tablets, and mobile) and to familiarize myself with some CSS jargon like margins, padding, or flex box. 

All things considered, week 5 has been a particularly productive week for me, despite the lack of actual class hours.