pages and site design
beginning the design process
After you've thrown together a couple of sites (something we all do when first starting), you may wonder if there isn't a better way of doing things. The answer is yes, of course and hopefully, these articles and tutorials can help.
A short (and very opinionated) list of books, software and web sites with excellent resources for amateur designers.
Spend some time planning your site and save yourself some work (and sanity) later on. Especially since you're doing this part time and working with others who also have "real" jobs.
Some Other Design Considerations
In planning your site you need to think about screen resolution, fonts, and other things you could ignore when putting your ideas on paper instead of the web.
How to Capture Web Page Designs
Although it is very bad form to copy someone else's page design completely, everyone borrows ideas and techniques from other pages. Netscape Composer allows you to easily capture a page and see what makes it tick.
The Web-Safe Color Palette - Do You Still Need It?
In the early days of web design, we were told to restrict our color choices to 216. Is that still necessary today?
Site Design, Usability, Navigation
These three topics are very much interwoven and very much affect how well your visitor enjoys their visit - and whether or not they will return.
A short tutorial on how to use the basic site design tools in Adobe GoLive. Even if you don't use GoLive some of the concepts may be useful in whatever program you use. From GoLive Heaven.
A three part overview of the different modifications that can be made to HTML tables to make the layout of your pages match the ideas you have in your head.
Rules to Remember in Designing Your Web Site
A short collection of very good advice to keep in mind while to plan your site. From Creative Pro.
How to Link Any File To Your Web Site
The web designers I work with often want to link all kinds of files from their sites - and that can sometimes cause problems for their visitors. This is a short overview of the pluses and minuses of many different file formats and how to help your visitors access the files you want them to have.
There are not many people out in the world who are looking at your pages through a 640x480 screen - unless you are a school with lots of old equipment. This site gives you the sobering view of your site as seen by people at that minimal resolution. Run a few of your pages through this viewer to see how your pages adapt or don't.
Web Hosting
I realize this isn't really a topic for layout and design but it isn't a beginner's subject either. The process of finding and working with a web host is important, however, so I hope you don't mind if I put it here.
When Bad Things Happen to Good Sites
This is a great article from the CreativePro folks about the problems you can have when your web host screws up. Lots of good information. You may also want to read the follow up article with some responses from readers.
