So I have decided that it would be cool to share some of my thoughts about web design, print design, and other related topics. Why have I decided this? To be totally honest, because I am a little bored & not ready to start vacuuming this morning.
I hope you enjoy, these are just my personal thoughts on design, if you have any suggestions to add to the list, or would like further reasoning behind the list, feel free to contact me.
Here are some sites that say more about good & bad web design...
Ratz.com
WebPagesThatSuck.com
Web Design & Web related stuff
Ok, I don't feel like trying to make this a perfect paragraph, all well written & stuff, it is like 6 in the morning & I am doing this for fun, so instead I will list my thoughts.
- Web pages should be interactive, easy to use & nice to look at.
- Simple navigation is the key.
- JavaScript menus should be backed up with a footer menu or other option, some people turn off JavaScript
- Web pages should be updated weekly for content, so the search engines will move them up in ranking
- Web pages should be updated visually at a minimum of once a year.
- Business web pages should be on the screen without scrolling - at least the front page.
- People who claim to be designers should come up with ORIGINAL ideas, that don't look like something you could get from a template.
- Real designers & coders should be able to code in notebook, instead of using Dreamweaver or Front Page (even if you use one of those to make your coding faster, you should still know how to code without prompts)
- To be a true web designer you need to be able to use: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, PHP (or ASP or comparable language) & Flash.
- If you want to call yourself a web designer you SHOULD NOT be using the web builder your host provides!! Even for Flash intros - if you can't do it yourself, at least admit it!
Programs I love & hate
Hate
- Internet Explorer - all versions
- Publisher - it make people think they can design
- Messengers
Love
- The Adobe Creative Suite CS3 (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Flash, Illustrator)
- FireFox
- Thunderbird
- Linux
Print Design
Ahh, print design is my comfort zone, seeing as I have been doing it for nearly a decade. My dad owns a print shop and I learned alot from him, I also pay attention to beautiful work & learned that way.
- Print design should get a message across quickly in a beautiful way - most people aren't going to read all of it.
- You can make beautiful things in black & white & color. Alot of people are afraid of the limitations of single color - welcome them.
- If you are doing a publication (i.e. newsletter, book, etc.) you should strict to no more than 3 fonts, at no more than 3 sizes. (i.e. 1 font for body at a standard size, same font smaller for captions, same font larger for heading, fancy font for things that need to 'jump' at 1 size, and maybe a heavy font for general purposes.
- In a publication with ads, all the ads need to look different.
- Stay away from to much clip art/graphics!!! It looks cheesy & annoying!!!
- Either use quality up to date looking stock photos, or take your own.
Favorite Support Sites
Miscellaneous Web & Print Design Pet Peeves
I found a new pet peeve with designs. It's not really a design issue as much as a content issue, blatant copyrighting. Under no circumstances should I be able to highlight text from your web site, paste it into a google search and find an exact match from another source on the web. People still do this! Can you believe after it? After how much my wonderful high school & college english teachers drove the laws of copyright & plagiarism into our heads some people just don't get it. Then again, maybe they didn't have high school or college english teachers, or maybe they don't think they will get caught. Did you know that even english teachers google phrases they think might have been plagiarized? You will get caught. You might consider checking out Copyright Laws.
Another pet peeve is letter formatting. There are proper ways to format letters. And now you don't even have to know what that format is, you just have to use the proper template in word. If you send a letter that doesn't have the proper formatting it makes you look uneducated, lazy & stupid.
Spelling, spelling, spelling. Misspelled words make you look stupid. Now I know that this isn't always easy. I am bad about spelling mistakes too. But I do try to spell check everything, multiple times so it doesn't happen. Most programs have spell check on them, including Dreamweaver & other web editors and Firefox for online web forms.