well i have been looking at all the inspirational web sites on cssheaven.com and etc and one thing I really noticed is that all sites have awesome graphics and unique graphics, and I am really starting to wonder, do you really have to be a great graphic artist and have a good imagination to be a successful web designer? Just something to think about, thanks, Jake

I don't think so, but you do need to have a good eye for detail. A great website could have little to no illustrations/fancy graphics, and still look amazing. You can work wonders with a website that is purely content, so long as you lay it out nicely, use complimenting colours, etc etc.

 

It all boils down to pretty basic design theory, the fancy stuff is just a bonus.

Absolutely RobH!

 

There's a tendancy for people to associate graphic design with web design - in fact the two couldn't be much different. The web is primarily a text medium which just happens to support images as well. Web design has to be fluid to accomodate thinbgs like variable text sizes, different browsers etc, graphics design is all done on a fixed canvas with fixed sized text etc.

I had the same question in mind too.

What I think as a graphic designer, and one who is trying to put my hands on web design, at the least it is better to have the basic knowledge of graphic design. And by having some nice graphics on your web page, it does make things look better.

But as a person with the same question in mind I'd ask, what will be the most important thing to have, so you can build a nice secure web page. I mean like at least "this 1 this 2 this 3" things(knowledge) .

I don't think you have to be a graphic designer but it doesn't hurt. If you're able to step in and handle all the aspects of your website, that's better for you - unless you're using graphics as an excuse for poor code ("pictures" of text, image maps that should be CSS-based menus, etc).

I ask myself the same question Jake as I am not a designer really, but the answer as they guys have already said, is no.

 

I know what looks good and have an eye for good design, but can't always recreate it. Understanding the fundamentals of good design is a great place to start. I recommend you buy: The Principles of Beautiful Web Design. Also it's a learning thing. All designers should be constantly learning new techniques and methods, but also on the look out for design tidbits. The way I approach this is to have a scrapbook (via Flickr) that I keep screenshots of great websites for future inspiration.

 

HTH?

I also highly recommend The Principles of Beautiful Web Design book, it covers much (all?) of the basic design theory behind creating a web site.

I don't think that you have to be a graphic designer, but I think you need to have a designers eye. I think there is a misconception that graphic design and web designer are one in the same...you don't have to be a graphic designer to be a web designer, but knowing design theory and how different things effect layouts are something that does need to be known.

 

 

After all a web designer is someone who takes content and gives it a face lift by implementing style, layout and graphics. If you don't have an eye for design and know what will work and what won't work then maybe web design isn't for you. I mean web design isn't just about the look of the site as we have argued many times on this forum, but it does need to be highly considered. Each site is different and unique and you do need to have an imagination to be able to create something that will help make that site stand out and look good. stock photo and graphics sites can help you if you cannot do such things yourself but you still have to be able to create the layout yourself. After all if you look at some well designed sites that don't have flash graphics it is due to how the designer has used the space and layout.

 

 

Creating a site that meets the strictest of web standards is important, but a web designer does need to design as well as code, as layout is one of the fundamental tools of a good designer. So even if you have never had design training if you have an eye for a good layout and are able to work magic with very little then you are a designer

Web design has to be fluid to accomodate thinbgs like variable text sizes.

I hear this crop up quite regularly, and I'd like to ask, is it very important? I see plenty of web pages out there which don't look so great when you adjust the text size - some that break entirely. Should I be looking at making this a priority from now?

 

Also, I keep meaning to ask you, Bluedreamer - does your name come from Flying in a Blue Dream? I used to have that record when I was 15

I hear this crop up quite regularly, and I'd like to ask, is it very important? I see plenty of web pages out there which don't look so great when you adjust the text size - some that break entirely. Should I be looking at making this a priority from now?

 

It's mainly an accessibility issue. You don't know anything about the viewer or their computer settings, so fluidity is a way to ensure that their resolution and text size settings don't mean the site 'breaks' for them.

 

It kinda highlights one of the big differences between graphic and web design. A lot of web designers originally came from a print background. Print/graphic design is all about controlling the medium to make it look a certain way once printed. Web design differs in that once the design side has been done, there are going to be variations in how it looks because of the different end-user settings. Because of this, the mindset of the designer has to be different, and there's a move now to stop trying to control the user experience so strictly. Let users use whatever text size they're comfortable with, rather than dictating what you think they should use.. the user is in a much better position to know what suits them, after all. Same goes with sizing columns and whatnot.. if you use percentages, then it'll look fine no matter what resolution the site is being viewed on.

 

Web is still a fairly new medium for design, I think a lot of designers are still getting their heads around the fact that it's not just graphic design on a screen. It's pretty interesting that the lack of control over what the user sees is still such a big issue. Designers have been getting headaches over it for years, trying to make sure a site looks exactly the same over as many browser/computer configurations as possible and seem to have forgotten to ask themselves why they're doing that in the first place.

I wouldent say you have to be a great graphics designer no... all depends what you need really, For example...

 

You can create a super effective and nice website with 2x Plain block colours, 2x Tones (Black & White), and 1 photoshop symbol, along with a couple of gradients, If you can code in CSS and you can do the above in photoshop your onoto a winner,

 

Have fun

 

Pete

I wouldent say you have to be a great graphics designer no... all depends what you need really, For example...

 

You can create a super effective and nice website with 2x Plain block colours, 2x Tones (Black & White), and 1 photoshop symbol, along with a couple of gradients, If you can code in CSS and you can do the above in photoshop your onoto a winner,

 

Have fun

 

Pete

 

 

With respect, I'm not sure that's really design so much as one possible approach to making a website. Whether it's an approach that's appropriate for a particular client is another matter. To me, design is about coming up with something that suits the particular job. About 90% of it is research into competitors, target markets and so on, not just making it look 'nice'.

With respect, I'm not sure that's really design so much as one possible approach to making a website. Whether it's an approach that's appropriate for a particular client is another matter. To me, design is about coming up with something that suits the particular job. About 90% of it is research into competitors, target markets and so on, not just making it look 'nice'.

 

My apologies, I said 'all depends what you need really' instead of 'It all depends on what the website is for' I worded it wrong, But a simple website is usually a winner...

With respect, I'm not sure that's really design so much as one possible approach to making a website. Whether it's an approach that's appropriate for a particular client is another matter. To me, design is about coming up with something that suits the particular job. About 90% of it is research into competitors, target markets and so on, not just making it look 'nice'.

 

I totally agree with that.

 

There isn't a hard and fast rule on how to make the perfect website, as every single website has different circumstances and requirements.

 

You design for the website, you don't design around the website.

You design for the website, you don't design around the website.

 

 

I totally agree, each website is different, even if it is on the same topic the content is different. You should never design a layout and then think of how the content can fit around your design. Just because one style works for one site and looks ok doesn't mean that it will look good for a different site.

I hear this crop up quite regularly, and I'd like to ask, is it very important? I see plenty of web pages out there which don't look so great when you adjust the text size - some that break entirely. Should I be looking at making this a priority from now?

 

Also, I keep meaning to ask you, Bluedreamer - does your name come from Flying in a Blue Dream? I used to have that record when I was 15

 

You can "break" virtually any site if you keep increasing text size, but a well designed site should still be able to be followed, even if it does look a bit messy. Personally I try to allow for notching up the text size three times (using Firefox as a base). I think it would be nice to allow full resizing on every site I create but due to the myriad of restrictions/customer requirement it's not walways possible despite me telling them!

 

Nah my nic doesn't come from Mr Satriani - try Hawkwind!

I didn’t bother to read every post, but if you want to make good web sites it may be a good idea to know the following.

 

- Typography. This is very important and is much underestimated. Read about typography and you'll develop much as a web designer.

- Grid and layout. Positioning your elements is extremely important.

- Color combinations, text, hierarchies, and background-colors.

- Whitespace and simplicity. A signature in this forum describes it pretty much. "Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple". I'm not an expert in English, so I used some time to understand it. Agree very much.

- Do the content first. Do the design around it. Not reversed. If you start to make a design and then just say "that would fit there or what?", the design is pretty much doomed to suck. Think about what is important.

- Display the right content on the front page. If you are a freelance designer, then display your work, not your blog. You want jobs, don't you? People are in a rush and don’t bother to scan your whole site.

- Code it valid and semantic and use Html and CSS. There are really no disadvantages. Drop the tables, really.

it's horses for courses - i remember when i first used google and thought "how basic!" -didn't seem to hold them back

- Code it valid and semantic and use Html and CSS. There are really no disadvantages. Drop the tables, really.

 

So is Html and CSS the core for scripting in web design? and others like flash & Javascript are just things that will make your web looking good / user friendly?

I'm no expert in Ajax, Javascript and other languages, but I would say Html and CSS is the core of it. CSS is a very powerful tool and you can achieve great result based just on that. However, javascript or Ajax would be nice if you want to do something CSS doesn’t support. Html & Css are the only real "layout-languages", but you may sparkle you site up with some javascript, flash or anything else.

 

Bye example. Take a look at the contact-information button in the right corner at my site. That is the only thing that uses javascript on my site. (You won't be able to see it in IE6. Huge bug there. This is still in development btw.)

 

Web Designer Wall has written Tutorials on jQuery, a Javascript library, which you saw earlier on my site. Those things can't be achieved, at least not as good looking, with CSS as with javascript.

 

You may also want to use sIFR on your headlines by an example. It allows you to use every font you like on the web regardless of if the user does or doesn’t have the font installed on his/her computer.

 

Sorry, I kind of suck in English, but hope that made some sense. You are absolutely right, but I though it was better to documentate my opinion a little.

Thanks a lot, I love your way of documentation.

Sono this is a little off topic but why dont you center your site? j/w

All designers should be constantly learning new techniques and methods, but also on the look out for design tidbits. The way I approach this is to have a scrapbook (via Flickr) that I keep screenshots of great websites for future inspiration.

 

that's a good idea - I do the same, but just paste my screengrabs into fireworks and have a few separate files, either specific for a new job [ie inspiration for it] or different colours, or use of icons etc...it's quite a nice catalogue.

Ya i have all the sites and ideas I like on my digg

that's a good idea - I do the same, but just paste my screengrabs into fireworks and have a few separate files, either specific for a new job [ie inspiration for it] or different colours, or use of icons etc...it's quite a nice catalogue.

 

Do you use a Mac?

 

I use Snapz Pro and love it for screengrabs.

I do the same, I have a massive set of folders with screenshots of full layouts, and elements of websites. It is great for inspiration and brainstorming.

nope I've got a PC

Do you use a Mac?

 

I use Snapz Pro and love it for screengrabs.

 

I use Paparazzi for taking full screenshots of websites, and Skitch for basic screen/region capture.

Sono this is a little off topic but why dont you center your site? j/w

 

Centering the design is such a standard I wanted to do something else. People may say "but people with big-ass-screens will get an enormous empty part on their right side". Reading left-to-right is standard, so that shouldn't really be a great matter. People with lagre screen tends not to maximize the browsers anyways.

 

I also think this design really fits to be left-aligned. Just a matter of taste really.

Ya thats fine I was just making sure it wasnt supposed to be centered, looks good btw

Hehe. I know why you do react. Left/right-aligned layouts with grids are not quite common.

And btw. It might look good centered to. I'll try that for 10 min so you can check.

Personally I like it better centered it helps it to flow better and its easier to read on my screen

Try to Give the wrap:

 

margin:0px auto

Done that a long time ago. The problem is I can't both float it left and still place it at the center. Therefor, I had to switch margin for padding..

 

This is devlopment version anyway. I'll just let i stay like this 2Dropsdesign.com