Web Design

[Skull Mason]

I know there are plenty of tech savvy folk here. To make a long story short; I need to develop the ability to design websites/blogs. I've been doing some reading online but as always I have just come across people debating the best ways to do this.

I would like to know what programs or methods people here use or recommend such as golive or dreamweaver or something else.

 

[lucky8]

Kind of depends what you're building it for. If you've never designed a site before, I'd suggest trying out a free service like yola.com, HomeStead, or something similar first before you purchase a program. The free creators obviously don't have an extensive amount of features, but they're easy to use and they help familiarize yourself with the design process.

 

[novice_btm]

I dunno if you follow Revision3 ( http://revision3.com/ ), or any of their podcasts (diggnation, Hak5, Tekzilla, etc), but they've been recommending Build a Website - Squarespace , which seems pretty full-featured, and one-stop shopping.

 

[Enid]

Dreamweaver is great. I use Illustrator & Photoshop to create designs and Dreamweaver to put them together.

Web Design Tutorials

Tutorials - Online Training - lynda.com

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/01/100-free-high-quality-xhtmlcss-templates/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/freebies/

http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/

 

[Dorian_Gray]

Dreamweaver is great. I use Illustrator & Photoshop to create designs and Dreamweaver to put them together.

Web Design Tutorials

Tutorials - Online Training - lynda.com

100 Free High-Quality XHTML/CSS Templates | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine

Freebies | Smashing Magazine

Free Website Templates

If you know someone in college that will let you use their email, you can get a killer deal on the adobe creative suite. Thats what I use... that and a template every once and a while.

 

[Enid]

Yes, I actually work for a college...so I definitely took advantage of my discount to get CS4.

:-D

 

[Dorian_Gray]

Yes, I actually work for a college...so I definitely took advantage of my discount to get CS4.

:-D

Nice, I've only got CS3.

 

[Skull Mason]

Hey thanks for the responses. Some nice links in there. So it is pretty much a consensus to get CS4 and a book/tutorials and go to town?

 

[Smartalk]

Most of the Web hosting companies have easy to use self built site software available to its users. I am with www.1and1.co.uk and have built my company website using there software. Very impressed by it as well as my clients.

Good luck and have fun

 

[Skull Mason]

One more thing I forgot them mention I am 100% Mac oriented.

 

[novice_btm]

One more thing I forgot them mention I am 100% Mac oriented.

Yet another reason to lust you. :wink:

 

[Enid]

Nice, I've only got CS3.

Photoshop CS4 is amazing. The adjustment brush is frickin awesome. It allows you to "paint" adjustments. In CS3 you could still adjust various parameters such as exposure and contrast. With CS4, however, you can also paint certain areas with different adjustments. For example you can paint a darker exposure onto one part of the image and paint a lighter exposure onto another part. If you want a particular object to pop out, you could paint it with more contrast. I love that tool.