Modern Web Design Strategies - Basics
Today's world wide web is full of incomprehensible amounts of poor web design; of all shapes and sizes too. Companies, ecommerce, blogs. I'm sure you've all seen your share of sites where you browse to it, then you just sit back and say "what do i do now?". I will cover all the basics of modern web design; making web pages that are easy, efficient, easily navigatable, all while being gorgeously attractive!
First off, "LEARN CSS AND DIVS!". It might seem slightly difficult if you've never done it before (if you're hooked on tables) but trust me, it's well worth it's weight in gold once you master it. Complete control of EVERY single thing about your website. Something off one pixel in any direction? It takes 3 seconds to make perfect.. anyways.
A major key in good web design is using Adobe Photoshop to make a mockup of your site. It can actually output a local website in either tables or divs and has proved very handy at times. So think about what you want to make the site about, if it's about.. oh lets say "apples", it will make sense to viewers if your site is green or red based.
Here's a hint; Don't make the whole site your color of choice, choose a less bright or maybe neutral color for the general color scheme BUT use your colors of choice on things like the Logo,Menus, or paragraph headers.
When you keep this mentality while designing, you'll end up with a much more appealing and aesthetically pleasing site that directs focus on what you WANT people to focus on; the logo, the menu, informational headers. Colors are overused in the wrong ways too much on the web today!
Be clear about margins, locations of menus and headers. Make things symmetrical! All of these things need to be taken into consideration while designing a website. When tied together will produce a much more usable and clean looking website while STILL using images and colors!
Another standard of today's gorgeous websites is central layout; through CSS it's typically as easy as setting the main div's style with:
margin:0 auto 0 auto;
Oh another thing I forgot to mention is don't forgot fonts! Experiment with them! It's good to mostly stick to one font throughout a site but your site will look much better just by simply setting fonts instead of the standard Lucida or Times New Roman. Web 2.0 Standards would imply Larger Fonts, Icons, and engaging content, and it all looks great!
Happy Designing =]
Josh Katherman - AboveState Digital Workshop
http://www.abovestate.com
First off, "LEARN CSS AND DIVS!". It might seem slightly difficult if you've never done it before (if you're hooked on tables) but trust me, it's well worth it's weight in gold once you master it. Complete control of EVERY single thing about your website. Something off one pixel in any direction? It takes 3 seconds to make perfect.. anyways.
A major key in good web design is using Adobe Photoshop to make a mockup of your site. It can actually output a local website in either tables or divs and has proved very handy at times. So think about what you want to make the site about, if it's about.. oh lets say "apples", it will make sense to viewers if your site is green or red based.
Here's a hint; Don't make the whole site your color of choice, choose a less bright or maybe neutral color for the general color scheme BUT use your colors of choice on things like the Logo,Menus, or paragraph headers.
When you keep this mentality while designing, you'll end up with a much more appealing and aesthetically pleasing site that directs focus on what you WANT people to focus on; the logo, the menu, informational headers. Colors are overused in the wrong ways too much on the web today!
Be clear about margins, locations of menus and headers. Make things symmetrical! All of these things need to be taken into consideration while designing a website. When tied together will produce a much more usable and clean looking website while STILL using images and colors!
Another standard of today's gorgeous websites is central layout; through CSS it's typically as easy as setting the main div's style with:
margin:0 auto 0 auto;
Oh another thing I forgot to mention is don't forgot fonts! Experiment with them! It's good to mostly stick to one font throughout a site but your site will look much better just by simply setting fonts instead of the standard Lucida or Times New Roman. Web 2.0 Standards would imply Larger Fonts, Icons, and engaging content, and it all looks great!
Happy Designing =]
Josh Katherman - AboveState Digital Workshop
http://www.abovestate.com
Source...