[Past] Making Fun, Simple Websites with Handwritten HTML/CSS

FEBRUARY-MARCH 2024

With Paloma Kop

PLEASE NOTE:

This is an online-only course with four meetings. Each session lasts about two hours. Individual sessions will be recorded and archived for later use, though this course is intended to be taken as a communal, real-time experience. Archived sessions are best used as a reference, not as replacement for live instruction.

Tickets

$150.00Read more

Please review all of the info before registering 🙂

Schedule

Tuesdays 6:30-8:30pm – EASTERN USA TIME
(11:30pm-1:30am GMT)

February 13 – 6:30-8:30pm EST
February 20 – 6:30-8:30pm EST
February 27 – 6:30-8:30pm EST
March 5 – 6:30-8:30pm EST

MATERIALS

For this course, you will need:

A computer with a web browser installed
A microphone and a webcam so we can hear/see you in the virtual classroom

Optional but helpful:

An extra monitor for your computer so you can look at the virtual classroom and your website-in-progress at the same time

Description

In an age where most websites are both boring to look at, and unnecessarily complex under the hood, we’ll be reclaiming the fun and simplicity of the early web by creating websites the old-fashioned way: writing pure HTML and CSS, by hand.

In this course, we will learn how to create simple websites by writing HTML code. We will learn to write CSS to style our webpages. This is an introductory course for beginners, or those wishing to refresh their skills. At the end of the course, everyone will have created their own site.

To get our pages online easily, we will use the Neocities platform which offers both hosting and a code editor within the browser. (If you’ve created HTML pages before, and you already have a preferred method for editing your code or a preferred hosting provider, you’re free to use that.)

We will cover:

Basic structure of an HTML document
Essential HTML tags
IDs and Classes
Styling the page and specific classes or elements with CSS
CSS transitions and animations
Internal and external links
Embedding media (Images, GIFs, and MP3 audio files)
Embedding external media with iframes
Using developer tools (inspect element, view source, etc.) to debug our own sites and “borrow” styles from other sites
Examples of websites from across the web that have been inspired by the “small web” movement

We will NOT cover:

Javascript or any other executable scripts or code
Bloated web frameworks such as React
Anything outside of pure, simple HTML and CSS

We’ll each create a site during the first class, and we’ll work on expanding it each week, with an instruction period as well as free work time with opportunities for Q&A. It’s great to come to this class with a vague idea for your site — or just have fun with it and see what happens 🙂

About the Teacher

I’m Paloma Kop, a multimedia artist and computer programmer. I’ve created many websites over the years, both professionally and for fun. Last winter, I completely redid my own artist website in plain HTML/CSS, and wrote a little about how and why. I really enjoyed the process and wanted to help others do the same — thus the idea for this class was born.