In this assignment, you'll create a set of visual teasers, verbal blurbs, summaries and banners to encourage visitors to your Web site to click to and read your documents from the top level of your site. Since they represent and advertise different pieces of writing, the visuals should be distinct from each other, but they should also work as a matched set of images on the main page where they appear together.

In this project, you'll end up with three different kinds or "levels" of products:

• TOP LEVEL: a set of "teaser" images and very brief blurbs, as would appear on a home or "index" page of your site, which suggests the content and the appeal of the full texts that appear on the bottom level. These are not just passive summaries or abstracts of the full texts, but active rhetorical appeals to persuade the intended audience to click to the text.
• MIDDLE LEVEL: a Web page (or set of pages) entirely devoted to your writing, where you post longer, more detailed summaries of the full texts on the bottom level. Each of these summaries should be supported with a medium-sized banner or graphic, which recalls the smaller image you used on the top level.
• BOTTOM LEVEL. Pages or sets of pages presenting the full texts of your own writing converted to their own HTML files and accompanied by larger banners or graphics, which visually recall the images used on the levels above to represent this writing.

Let's look at each of these levels in more detail:

Front-Page Visual Teasers and Verbal Blurbs (TOP LEVEL)

On your "home" page, write, first, a very brief blurb for each of the full texts. The blurb should be true to the purpose and content of the original text, but also entice a would-be reader to click to the main text. Experiment with different voices to engage the reader. The blurb may quote or introduce the original by summarizing it. Be concrete, lively, sharp. Think of the blurb as a small art for in its own right.

For each blurb, create a visual teaser: a thumbnail or icon that works with the blurb to reinforce the appeal you're making to the reader. Teasers should visually refer to the banner on the full text pages of each document. Try mingling words and images in Photoshop to make these intriguing and visually lively, without being corny, salacious, or dishonest about the nature of the text you're advertising.

Since they appear together on the top-level page as a set of links to various of your writings, the teasers and blurbs should work together visually as a matched set (the same size and shape probably, perhaps sharing other visual featuers), but still distinct enough from one another to suggest the individual appeal of each piece of bottom-level writing.

Small Banners and Summaries (MIDDLE LEVEL)

The next set of texts lay between the blurb/teaser level and the full-text level. Here, you want to create a paragraph that sums up the full-text, but not in the bland voice of most "abstracts." Instead, expand on the lively introducion offered in the blurb, but with more substance and detail from the full text. Try starting with a engaging question, concrete example, or narrative scene that sets up the full text.

You should also create a graphic to work with the summary: something between the smaller, visual "teaser" on the home page and the banner on the full-text page. These middle-level graphics should recall the teasers used for the top-level page so you create a consistent visual identity for each project from top-level to bottom.

The Full Texts with Banners (BOTTOM LEVEL)

From an electronic copy of your original text, copy the contents into an HTML file in Dreamweaver. You can chunk a longer text onto separate pages if you wish, in which case you should create some menu links to allow the reader to click to the various parts. Make a banner for each document to give it a visual signature which, of course, recalls the visuals you created for the top and middle levels.

Sample Levels Project

Here is Joe Erickson's Levels Project from a previous class.