Oct. 29, 2004
Contact: Robert Webber
English Department
(805) 756-1436; rwebber@calpoly.edu
Leaders in Web Design to Speak at Cal Poly Nov. 5
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Husband-and-wife team Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, leaders in Web design and developers of the first Web-safe color wheel, will present a free public forum on “Digital Entrepreneurship and the Dynamic Colors of the Web” Friday, Nov. 5, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Phillips Hall in the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly.
The forum is intended for anyone who creates presentations or artwork and needs to pick color relationships that communicate with intent and purpose, said Robert Webber, a faculty member in Cal Poly’s English Department and director of the university's Consortium for Arts and Media. “Their presentation will benefit anyone who uses the Web to communicate in compelling ways.”
Weinman, author of “Designing Web Graphics,” is a leading writer of books on Web design, development and graphics. Since writing her first book in 1995, she has been a front-runner and leading expert in Web design. “It’s nearly impossible to research Web design without coming across Weinman’s work,” said Webber.
At the Nov. 5 forum, she will discuss the history and evolution of lynda.com and will explore such topics as the Internet’s influence on education, why tests aren’t a good measure of learning, and how to best learn software. “Throw away most of what you've learned about color theory and learn practical color design techniques that will benefit you for a lifetime in all walks of development and design work,” Weinman said.
After her talk, Heavin will speak on how to design with color. An acclaimed painter and illustrator working with traditional and electronic media, Heavin counts among his clients Adobe, MSNBC, E! Entertainment Television, Outside, Computer Life, MacUser, and Keyboard Magazine. He has designed the covers of all of Weinman’s Web-design books and has designed graphics for numerous Web sites and CD-ROMS. He is co-author of “Coloring Web Graphics and Coloring Web Graphics 2.”
“Anyone interested in color and how color has evolved on the Web, as well as those interested in changing the way he or she views color relationships will find value in Heavin’s skill in combining traditional painting techniques with computer techniques,” Webber said.
From their studios in Ojai, Weinman and Heavin proactively communicate their ideas and understanding of Web publishing, Webber said. A self-taught expert at computer graphics, Weinman admits that she thought she would be the last person to ever understand what she teaches. “Yet her conversational style, mixed with personal humor, makes it easy for the average person to understand how to relate to what has been conceived as the ‘complicated world’ of computer graphics,” Webber said.
Weinman and Heavin’s goal is to help media designers and communicators use Web, print, motion graphics and color to develop techniques that can lead to better forms of communication.
The presentation is co-sponsored by lynda.com, the university’s
Consortium for Arts and Media, and the College of Liberal Arts.
For more information, contact Webber at (805) 756-1436 or rwebber@calpoly.edu.
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(NOTE TO EDITORS: For a photograph of Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin,
contact Robert Webber at 756-1436 or rwebber@calpoly.edu.)