#18382
The first thing you need to do is ask yourself a few questions. What is the point of the site? What are your goals? Do you want to show the world pictures of your cat? Are you trying to sell worms through the mail? Are you promoting your new major motion picture? The answer will help you begin to focus your page. As you edit your material, you will quickly see that the picture of your cat has no business on the homepage of your new blockbuster.
Frew, Jim. Webmonkey (1997). Design>Web Design
#18388
The Web is WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. What you see on the monitors and via the connections - and what you use for beta testing - is what your work will look like to all those who check out your URL. What's on your screen will be pretty close to what's on their screens. Print is a different matter altogether. Once your files leave your computer, there's a whole wonderful road they have to journey along to make it into print. You do everything you can to make sure they're ready for their adventure, but just as you're likely to forget your toothbrush or your favorite socks when you take a trip, your files often go to print missing a vital item. You can only hope that the thing you forgot about is easy to correct and not a big expensive mistake that blows your deadline and your budget. Getting your files through your service bureau (where your files are turned into negatives so that your negatives ultimately become the finished product) and to the printer is like taking up the gauntlet. Best case scenario, you'll be winded; worst case, you'll be pounded to a bloody pulp. I fear I'm showing my bias toward the Web.
Frew, Jim. Webmonkey (1999). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing
#18385
Many designers felt it was important to understand the medium, design for bandwidth constraints, create an end product that works for both the user and the client, and, of course, play the right tunes while designing. Their responses reinforced a lot of what I've learned while working at HotWired, and I also learned some new things. I learned some designers can count, some can't (the number five was subject to much creative interpretation). Spelling, I discovered, proved to be a similar challenge, though some of the new words and terms they came up with were true genius. Finally, when confronted with a problem, ask advice of some really smart - or smart-ass, as the case may be - designers, and they'll respond with elegant and very workable solutions. With a total of over 80 tips as varied as the designers themselves, hopefully you'll find something you can use to improve your own designs.
Frew, Jim. Webmonkey (1998). Design>Web Design
#20279
Adobe Photoshop is the Ginsu knife of graphics programs - it does everything from creating Web graphics to tweaking photos to putting the head of your favorite actor on the body of a porn star.
Frew, Jim. Webmonkey (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
