Chicago Artists Coalition

The Chicago Artists Coalition is my kind of web site. I like the colors, the simplicity and clarity of the formatting, and manageable quantity of information on the home page. I love that all the members have online galleries and that this is displayed prominently on the first page...it was fun to peruse around in different people's galleries. This is another great organization to know about! They have done a very successful job making all of the info on their site accessible to people. It seems to match their mission of being advocates for the artist community; it's great to know there's somewhere to go for practical artist questions, like taxes, health insurance, jobs, studio space, etc.

They seem to be a well-established organization, and they probably have more resources to devote to their website than some of the others we've seen whose sites haven't been so put-together. The calendar has all I could ever hope for in an events calendar! There's a whole lot of info there, but it is easy to scroll the headings/dates for eye-catching events and then click on the links for more detailed info. A+ for CAC.

Chicago Artists Resource

The Chicago Artist's Resource web site seems indeed to be a useful and thorough "resource" for artists. I would appreciate some type of short mission statement on the homepage stating what they do or hope to do. I think this is important, especially since there is no place to go and find this information...the tabs immediately filter visitors to the website based on the type of art they are interested in...dance, music, visual, theater...oops, I take that back, there is an "About" tab at the very bottom, but since the pages are so long, I nearly missed it. I would recommend repeating that in tab or link format up top as well
The pages were a bit info-heavy and scrolly for my liking, but well-organized, and I found useful information easily. I like the democratic nature of the site in that anyone is invited to submit an artist story or banner art. I like the different banner art selections - they made the site lively. I understand that funding is probably limited, so the google ads on the right-hand bar are there to generate revenue, but I find them distracting...

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

I wanted to apologize for neglecting you for these past few weeks. It's not you; it's me. I've been spending time with other technologies and art education-related activities...videos about hair, wikis, thesis proposals, unit plans for C&I, NAEA conferences, and the like. I really do have a good time when we get to hang out, but lately I haven't given you the time you deserve. I'd like to make it up to you in these last few weeks of the semester. I'll start by doing a web critique that is due in 3 short hours...

Sincerely,
Katie

Street Level Youth Media

Street Level Youth Media, an organization giving a media "voice" to underserved youth ages 14-19, seems like a pretty amazing operation...the website was a pleasure to visit. The interactive home page was fun (and no scrolling required), and once inside the site, I found it easy to navigate. The tabs and sidebars were logical and easy to follow. My only suggestion might be to add drop down menus, but then again, not having them made me go to each portion of the site, so maybe the lack of drop downs is meant to get people moving all around the site.

They seem to have a lot of interesting projects going on, in particular FAVC - Female Action Voicing Change, the Changing Community Project, and a cool Summer Arts Apprenticeship Program. The organization seems to be well networked, with its partnerships w/CPS , CAPE, and a bunch of other schools, including SAIC. The archive was fun to peruse, but I am surprised there isn't a larger archive - they seemed to have mostly current stuff, and I'm wondering if when they put up the new, they take down the old?