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d a v e
Posts: 4052
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
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my design process - 4/4/2008 16:23:59
having just completed the design for a site i was just thinking of sharing one or two thoughts on the design process and how it might be like yours or then oddly different:
whenever i get a brief for a site this is usually what i do, and what i did this time was...
start with an (exisiting) logo - the style and colours will be a basis for the site, at least they site can't clash with the logo ;)
have a look at some other sites and hope none of them are *too* good ...
i'd been palying around with some rounded corners boxes from http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200505/transparent_custom_corners_and_borders/
and got all excited then realised it was too much work getting it to work in IE6 (his did mine didn't AND making seperate colours for each box and fitting in some vine art)
i went back to the drawing board, or at least a scrap of paper, that i roughed out the site on while i was putting my kids to bed (nice to be bombarded by teddies and snot while designing).
i made the basic skeleton and actually handcoded it in DW until i got it working fine in everything (well IE6, opera, firefox, ie7, safari: all on windows)
tweaked my css file then went on to designing the header graphics. i had recently come across some vineart brushes which i now had floating around in a fireworks doc with some of the logo ideas, and my own vine art (i had to handtrace the logo drawn by the client and choose colours) along with an extensive palette inpsired from some tulips in my garden and a palmolive shower gel bottle)
i had already on fixed width as being easier to design and to keep the site reasonable for text width - and of course to fit in my vine art.
i had already spent many hours on my inital design which i was a bit loathe to just scrap but sometimes that's what you have to do, so i went back to the original colours and instead if making the site largely green instead plumped for pink with fresh green flourishes. (well hopefully) to meet the brie given to me.
after a couple of late nights (i find it easier to design when i know i'm not going to be disturbed and my brain is actually working) i had it pretty much there except for some final playing (my weakness and possibly strenght is that i like to play a lot with the design, not so good for hours:pay but nice for me and hopefully ends up in a good site)
i tested in the target browsers a i went along to avoid nasty surprises and kept an eye on keeping my code valid and hopefully accessible.
i then asked for feedback on 3-4 fora (forums?) and most of the feedback was positive or at least helpful in pointing out deficiencies. i decided against implementing some of the suggestions as i just didn't feel they were right in my opinion.
i find that when i'm doing a site i tend to mull things over subconsciously (or semiconsciously) quite a lot and maybe half of my design is done away from the computer.
it's also helpful to know when you're adding to much decoration (e.g.. drop shadows and other fancy bits) to a site and that design is as much about what you leave out as what you put in.
and looking at a site the next morning with fresh eyes is a good way to see whether an idea sitll stands up or whether you were just getting carried away :)
so i'm happy with it, she's happy with and all i have to now is sit back and wait for the 'i just wondered if maybe we could change this, and move the nav, and make the little man dig a hole...'
dave
_____________________________
David Prescott
Gekko web design
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d a v e
Posts: 4052
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
Status: offline
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RE: my design process - 4/5/2008 1:51:51
yeah but the drop shadows in my link are cool ;) and there are borders too!
_____________________________
David Prescott
Gekko web design
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