Picking a final-project topic
For your final project (a working website of at least six pages, plus either an off-campus "mirror" or an off-campus supplement, such as a WordPress blog), many kinds of sites will fill the bill.
These pages are still under their
authors' control and may have been removed, improved, modified,
broken entirely,
or transferred to new servers. Some were made in semesters when we did less CSS and had less
emphasis on escaping the "made with a Dreamweaver template" look:
- Student portfolio
- A themed photo portfolio
- Sororities
- Soccer
- Corporate Retreats
- Advertising group
- Adventure game
- Advertising & Design Portfolio
- Journalism portfolio
- Photo gallery
- Advertising portfolio
- Senior portfolio
- Equestrian team
- Bar 24
- Wine Lovers
- Spreco Creamery
- Belcher Electric
- RU Ultimate
- RU Guitar Heroes
- Narrative Journalists
- Olde Virginia Homes
- Keyboard Ninja
- Cornhole Aces
- Caitlin's Portfolio
- Steven's FP Portfolio
- NekoFlair Fashions
- Bobby's Bubblegum
- Beehive Yearbook
- Insults R Us
- ROC TV
In the past, students have done things like...
- Sites for organizations they belong to. (In the past, students have created or updated sites for the frisbee club, ROC-TV, yearbook, fraternity, sorority, etc.)
- Sites for campus groups whose websites need an update
- Personal, family or friend's real or fictional business sites. (We've had an electrical contractor, a paint store, a florist, a craft showcase, a candy store, a cheese shop, bass fishing, amusement park concessions, and more.)
- Hobby or fantasy business pages: From fashions to insults
- A personal portfolio of creative projects (if it's not a duplication of a project for another course). This may include work in other courses, internships, projects, your resume, etc. If you are taking the journalism-portfolio or Web-portfolio course, it might be better to create a Web project here that will add to that portfolio.
- A professional portfolio for a friend or relative (writer, photographer, artist, musician)
- A webzine or "feature story" package: a mini-magazine about anything that you can organize into at least six pages (a front page, four "inside" pages, and an "about this project" page). We've had a guide to historical houses in Virginia and a project on ancient Greek philosophers.
- A "theme" or "topic" site: "Winter Footwear Fashions" with person-on-the-street interviews and photos of people wearing workboots, high-fashion boots, fur-lined boots, sneakers or flip-flops. Or how about "Sushi Places in Radford," "Pizza in Radford," "Tanning in Radford," or "Experts share how to get through the last two weeks of the semester..." (presumably with pages on coffeeshops, late-night study locations, fast food, slow food, counseling services, or relaxing on the beach because your work was all done early).
- Planning your career? Do something like your "reviews" project, but make it a collection of profiles of companies you might like to work for; let each page answer the question "Does the [companyname] website make you want to work there?"
updated Nov. 5, 2012