starting a new web site

[marwen]

I am in a bit of a fix. Tons of experience in graphics (Illustrator, Quark, FreeHand, & Photoshop - every version since 3.0.5)

I have no clue where to start in making a web site for my business.

I have seen a site that is almost everything that I do. If I tried do emulate this site and replace the purtinent data that important to myself, I would not have a clue where to start!

Better yet - is this copyright infringement?

PLEASE, can anyone give me a few suggestions?

marwen :

[Webforumz Staff]

I'm not sure, and indeed I don't think the law is sure, where people stand on copying designs/layouts from other websites.

However, rest assured that if other web designers see that you have copied a website then they will often have a go at you. I've actually seen campaigns started by designers on forums where thousands of people on the forum have harassed a designer for copying a website.

But back to the point - where should you start?

I think this really depends on whether you want to produce websites in the future, or just this one website for your business. If you want to produce websites in the future, then you really need to learn HTML and CSS and go down that route. It takes time, and will mean it will be a while before you can get a website out there, but you'll have the knowledge to do it yourself time and time again. A good place to go is http://www.w3schools.com/ as they have excellent in depth tutorials on HTML, CSS, etc.

Alternatively, you might just want this one website. Seeing as you have good experience with Photoshop, etc, I would suggest that you design the site graphically in photoshop. Take a good look around the web at various websites and design your own in Photoshop. Send the PSD off to a designer and he should be able to cut it up, code it up and send the whole lot back to you - your design in HTML. Doing it this way would save you a lot of money as designers (as I'm sure you know) charge a good deal for coming up with the design in the first place, going through drafts and communicating with the client.

Yet another alternative is for you to use a WYSIWYG program such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage, to design the website for you graphically. You'll still need images, so you can do that, but you'll need to learn a little about how to put the images into HTML and do the layout.

[marwen]

Hello :

You know, I had given your suggestion some serious thought already. You ABSOUTELY correct, learning HTML will definately take a long time to get things going, especially if you teach yourself by reading HTML 4 DUMMIES. Good book, but they beat around the bush until there is nothing left.

I got started reading that thing and it took forever to get to the 1st set of directions. Maybe that's just me. What do I know? I am semi-retired and have been shooting professionally since 1960..

Hah! Since digital has come out, this is a whole new ballgame, >>> and I can recall the day when I said to my Mom - "Oh mommy, please let me buy this camera - this will be the ONLY camera I will ever buy!" HAH! Who knows how many camers later, how much darkroom supplies?

Right now there are four MACs running, three scanners, five different printers, including a 36" NovaJet (ENCAD). And check this out --- everything I am doing is working FINE on OS9. OSX came out at least 5 years ago(almost). But alas, all new apps are being geared for OSX so I just might have to bite the bullet and get another NEW puter. At least this one will burn DVD's (LOL)

Anyway, I was concerned about PS a little bit . It's what you don't know that bothers me. You can spent hours aarranging a collage (page) and when I save it it in PS 7, you can "save for web". Open up a browser> OPEN> (file name)> and as long as you started things out OK "sizewise" -- you get to see exactly what you designed in PS. Text, graphics, and all.

What I worry about, is > "should there be something there that did't go in automatically?"

I know there won't be anything happening that is interactive. My guess is that at least if I get up a "presence", once I start in with advertising. I'll have some kind of credibility. Slowly lean HTML and keep the ball rolling.

PS though, will only allow me ONE page, I can make it LONG and have my audience scroll down, but a site is also like reading. If it's not EASY to read, the reader, will loose interest.

I have my share of access to applications ( that I don't know how to use - LOL ) so I guess I can get page ONE up, but "how do I get PAGE 2- online?

Your response to my posted thread seemed as though you knew what you were talking about. I appriciate that.

I am a fairly quick learner, if you can, would you be able to answer a few "specific" questions as they come up?

much thanks -

regards

marwen

[Webforumz Staff]

If you post any specific questions on Webforumz then I'm sure that someone can answer them. In fact I can't think of a website-related topic that at least one of our regular members doesn't know in detail.

Learning HTML can be a bit hard for people who aren't familiar with programming/markup and have only dabbled with applications or, like yourself, have simply followed an industry for many years. It's less about learning HTML and more about learning a new way of doing things. Once you know HTML, I'm sure that css will follow very very quickly.

'Save for web' in Photoshop is a good feature, but it simply saves an image and nothing more. That's fine for individual graphics, but obviously you can't use that for an entire website. For a start it saves the text in the graphic (so it isn't actual text!) which creates fairly large images - much larger than the text would be in HTML. Also there is then the problem of screen resolutions. You can't make the image stretch for different resolutions without it becoming pixellated and looking...stretched!

I think that you could learn the basic HTML to put some text, images and a few links between pages in an afternoon, especially if you use an online tutorial that skips the crap and gets straight down to business.

[JohnMitch]

As far as copying a site goes, unless you copy it line by line (of code) then most people don't have too much problem with you using a similar layout (as long as you don't use thier images, or images like them).

Back to the webdesign portion. I would suggest learning HTML. Yeah, you CAN go buy Frontpage and use it to put together a website that will show up 90% of the time without errors in 75% of the viewers browsers, but why do that when you can just start by learning HTML? HTML is not hard to learn and while you can't do a whole lot with it, you will be able to make a nice site with it.

Of course you COULD hire a designer, but that depends on how much of a website you are wanting. Special Effects or server side scripting is something you might want to hire someone for, but just the standard site I'd say take about 1-2 days and learn HTML. Good luck and post back if you have any questions at all. We will be here to help you at.

PS- Glad to have you as a member!