More and more people every day create their own web sites for blogging, business, sharing ideas, networking, helping people, and a variety of other purposes. It’s no surprise that with the growing number of people creating websites, there is a growing number of web designers.
Most people who create their own website end up becoming a web designer in one form or another, learning the basic skills necessary to any web designer. This article is to help you discover those skills you need to design your website, as well as show you a step-by-step process of how easy it can be.
Things you’ll need:
Computer
Text Editor (Notepad for PC, TextEdit for Mac)
Web Browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox)
Optional:
WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) Editor - ex. Dreamweaver Graphic Software - ex. Adobe Photoshop, to create your own images!
1. What is your web page about?
Before you can begin designing your site, you need to figure out what it’s going to be about. Are you creating a blogging web site to share your writing? A website for a company your created? A photography site to share your portfolio? Depending on the type of web site you want to create will determine greatly on how you will design it.
2. Follow the main web design Tips!
There are several web design tips that are important to know before you being designing your web site.
TIP #1 - Design Above the Fold! - Designing above the fold means to put the most important information from your web site at the top of the page because people are less likely to see it if they have to scroll downward.
TIP #2 - 800 X 600! Design yourлаптоп столове web pages so that the content will fit within an 800 pixel by 600 pixel box. This will ensure that it will fit on everyone’s monitor, even the small prehistoric ones!
TIP #3 - Forget The TIMES! Do not use Times Roman font for you web site text! Times New Roman is font made for print materials like books. For web design, try to use a sans serif font such as Helvetica, Arial, and Verdana!
TIP #4 - Small Is Better! When adding graphics and multimedia to your web site like audio and video, the smaller the file size the better. This will reduce download times, and will keep people from pulling out their hair when your web site doesn’t load fast!
TIP #5 - CSS is the way to go! CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a type of HTML coding made specifically for web site styling. Have proper knowledge of how this coding works is extremely important and necessary for any web designer!
3. Make a sketch
Once you have a clear idea of what your web site is going to be about, and keep the previous web design tips in mind, I recommend you make a sketch of what you want your web site to look like. Ask yourself where do you want the main text to go? How about the navigation links? Does your web site have a header? A footer? One Column? Two? Three? Make a few sketches of possible ways your web site could look, and label each part so you know what it is for future use.
4. Take Notes!
After you’ve made your sketch, write notes about the various parts of your site, and how you’d like mach zehnder modulator them to look. Write down colors, sizes, font styles, be as detailed as possible. This will help you get a clear picture in your mind of how you want your web site to look.
5. Learn HTML
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the coding language used to make web site. You will need to know how HTML works before you can really get into creating your site. If you have not had any experience with HTML previously, there are numerous instruction books, and free tutorials online that will help you learn HTML quickly. Here is a few web sites I recommend checking out to help you learn HTML:
http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/
http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/
http://www.pagetutor.com/html_tutor/index.html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/
When you begin learning HTML I suggest you test everything you learn by creating test web pages. You can create these in a text editor such as Notepad for PC, or TextEdit for Mac, and view the pages you create in your computer’s default web browser. This will ensure you are learning HTML correctly and will give you a good idea on how it works to create web content.
6. Create HTML
Once you have an understanding of what HTML is, and how it works, you can begin creating your web site with based on your prior sketches. Break each part of your sketch down and create the HTML for each part indivdually. Then put the parts together like pieces to a puzzle and that will make it much easier for you to write your HTML coding.
7. Style your web page using CSS
HTML provides basic formatting and styling, but if you want to have complete control over how your web site looks, I highly recommend you learn how to use CSS (cascading style sheets). CSS is code similar to HTML that tells different parts of your web page how to look. As with HTML, there are many books and free tutorials online that can help you learn this valuable styling code.
8. Use a WYSIWYG Editor!
Most web design professionals use some kind of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that makes it much more easier to design your pages because they create HTML code automatically for you! WYSIWYG are visual editors, meaning you can see what your editing without having to open the page in a browser.
The best WYSIWYG editor on the market right now is Adobe’s Dreamweaver. There are others, and they usually come with a price tag, but if you are serious about web design, it’s a good idea to have one.
In conclusion, designing a website isn’t too difficult if you know the proper method of steps to make it as quick and as easy as possible. You should be well on your way to designing a beautiful looking web site! Good Luck!