Where Design Really Fits

As a designer, do you know where your work really fits in the process of design? If Web design is your business, then you must make certain you are in the right mindset and you use the right process when it comes to your work. You don't want your designs to fail, but, unfortunately, there is a strong chance that they will do exactly that. Lets take a step back for a minute and define what a failing design is, and why it fails.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>Project Management>Workflow

Knowing About Web Safe Fonts

What are Web safe fonts? Practically every personal computer has a set of fonts installed. These fonts are usually put there by the computer manufacturer or are the default sets of fonts for the operating system that computer is using. It's possible to install additional fonts on your own. However, not all font sets are created equal. Different computers can have very different sets of fonts installed, and most casual computer users never know the difference.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>Typography

Bland and Grand Web Designs

One of the greatest aspects about the Web is that it's such an open platform, especially for design. The accessibility and freedom of the Web allows designers to do some very nice-looking things, and it allows for experimentation and interpretation. Unfortunately, it also allows for some very bland-looking things, too. Let's take a look at some bland designs and some grand designs, and take a peek at what makes them that way.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design

Don't Be Afraid of Serif Fonts

As the practice of Web design ages, some common rules and "best practices" inevitably embed themselves in the craft. Among these are the processes for using specific types of semantics when coding your site, like using divs as hooks in your X/HTML for your CSS, and making your page beautiful and functional that way. Another is to ensure readability of your site by choosing a proper number of fonts (generally, no more than three or four, and for the minimalist, one or two).

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>Typography>Fonts

Simple CSS: Creating More Readable Text

Typography is an important part of Web design. Just like in the print world, your content needs to be readable to your viewers for it to be of any use. As a general rule, you want to make sure your Web site provides as little resistance as possible to the user, and the easier your site is to read, the better. CSS provides three very useful properties to enhance the readability of your site: font , line-height , and letter-spacing.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>Typography>CSS

HTML, the Foundation of the Web

HTML is hot again. Some time ago the HTML5 promo machine got up to speed, causing a little mini-fuss. In a parallel universe, others are still putting a lot of time and effort into the development of xHTML2. This (public) renewal of interest in HTML caused plenty of discussion, revealing several blank spots in the general knowledge of HTML. This article will hopefully plug one of the most notorious holes shut.

Matthijs, Niels. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>HTML>HTML5

Things Every Web Designer Should Know

We get a lot of e-mail from people asking for ways to be a better Web designer. There is no simple way to answer a question like that, but the majority of the time we find that a designer has been exposed to HTML and Web design in such a way that he or she is designing pages and uploading them to the Web, but was never shown some of the essentials of Web design. If you're a new designer or you're already building pages and need to up your game, read on.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design

IE Version Targeting: A Neutral Perspective

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz going around about Internet Explorer 8 and plans to include in it a feature called "version targeting." You can scour the net for blog posts and articles about version targeting, but you'll get a lot of debate and several different views on this topic, and it's difficult to pinpoint just the facts. What is version targeting? Version targeting is a way to tell Internet Explorer how it should render a page.

Rodriguez, David. Web Page Design for Designers (2008). Design>Web Design>Standards>Web Browsers

Creating Lasting Websites

When my 98 year old grandpa posted a comment on my weblog last fall it hit me in a new way just how much the web is a part of our society. If I open my laptop in a coffee shop and there's no wireless I practically don't know what to do. "What? No internet? I guess I'll play solitaire." The more the web expands its reach the greater the need for those behind the scenes to create usable, sustainable and quality websites.

Blanc, Shawn. Web Page Design for Designers (2007). Design>Web Design