General web design help

[DrWolfgangVonBubbles]

Can anyone recomend some general design tutorials?

Tutorials for things like making a nice user friendly layout for your site. And something like general graphic design that isn't program specific. Tutorials that help you find out what to design, rather than how.

If not tutorials, then maybe just some tips?

Maybe I am just an idiot for not knowing this stuff already? :P

[Sage Tech]

I don't know of any good tutorials but if anybody fancies writing one I'd take great pleasure in publishing it on HM.

Tips I tend to follow are:
- Consistency, use a minimum number of fonts for all text.
- Standardise on layout, eg make each page have the same basic structure. Dreamweaver is good for this with templates.
- Follow expected behaviour. Clicking on a page logo takes you to the home page, have links in the page footer for privacy, contact etc.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.

[geek]

check out www.good-tutorials.com, and www.pixel2.life.com

Both have excellent tutorials, and I'm pretty sure pixel2life has a Web Design Tips section as well. Good Luck.

[EnderX]

If you want, I know geek wrote a tutorial on Photoshop slicing and submitted it to HM. It's a pretty nice tutorial that teaches you the basics of designing a website in Photoshop. The layout is pretty much a personal choice and amount of creativity. Slicing really opens up your options though for very nice looking websites.

[geek]

that tutorial is located here:

http://www.hostmatrix.org/view.php?tid=12

to view it, you have to have an account with HM @ the main screen, your forum account will not work.

[DrWolfgangVonBubbles]

That's the problem... I don't have photoshop! I don't have Paint Shop Pro or Fireworks either. :P I have to use whatever graphics programs I can get my grubby paws on, as I design my site from many computers. <_<

The sites Geek gave helped quite a bit. And Sage Tech had some pretty good tips and reminded me I don't have a privacy policy... and I probably should...

[Blur]

If you haven't done so already, One thing would be to use the free trials provided by each set of software...after that, not really sure....find a new trial? hehe... Or depending on what type of graphics you want (ie, if you just want a banner) I'm sure you could get someone around here (Including myself if need be) to make you something nice.

[DrWolfgangVonBubbles]

I am on dial-up so I hate downloading anything. :P And like I said I use many different computers, most of which aren't mine.

I really would like to learn to design nice graphics myself, as I want to design for a living. Unfortunatly, I am really bad at making images, which could be a problem.

Also, I am not very creative with the general layouts. <_<

[lsyliu]

hi there,

not sure if this is any help, but before i got my lovely selection of graphics programs i had to make do with either free programs from web design mags...
e.g. Practical Web Projects (i think thats the name). it's about £4.50 or something like that but worth it. i would also recommend the 30 day trials of adobe and macromedia fireworks as suggested earlier.

There also used to be a free online graphics editor on the adobe website that has a small selection of filters to use - and it's free and no downloading or installing and after you finish you just copy and save wherever. Not sure if it still exists but it's worth a try.

as for tutorials, hmmm... need to wrack my brains for that one. I'm sure i've come across hundreds! :) (will have a think)

[Blur]

I found something that may you may be interested in. Two free fully functional paint programs that have most of the same features as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop. Personally, I have not used either of these but I have heard that they are both great, especially being free. Here's the link to both, I'll let you decide on which one to try, or you can just try both and keep the one you prefer. Hope it helps.

www.gimp.org (http://www.gimp.org/) and www.ultimatepaint.com (http://www.ultimatepaint.com/) - Good Luck. :)