I need some advice for making a website?

[AnacondaAndy]

I have been wanting to make a website for myself, and have tried several times to, but none turned out too good. Where is a good place to start with when designing a site(my problem is not with the coding, just thinking up a design)?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by AnacondaAndy
I have been wanting to make a website for myself, and have tried several times to, but none turned out too good. Where is a good place to start with when designing a site(my problem is not with the coding, just thinking up a design)? the drawing board. Get out a paper and draw something.

[spufi]

*obvious plugs for inspiration in design*

http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://cssvault.com/

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by spufi
*obvious plugs for inspiration in design*

http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://cssvault.com/
Ryanbrill.com (http://www.ryanbrill.com/)
Navigate Australia (http://studentwork.qantm.com.au/akrespanis/NavAust/index.htm) (Work in progress)
Zeldman.com (http://www.zeldman.com/)
Meyerweb.com (http://www.meyerweb.com/)
CSS Edge (http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/)
Simplebits (http://www.simplebits.com/)

[toicontien]

I just got introduced to http://www.tutorialforums.com/ and it's pretty good for graphics and graphics design. They've got several forum sections on different areas of graphic design and photoshop. Check it out.

I also frequent http://www.deviantart.com/ for inspiration. It's an artists' web site where people just post their work. The site contains just about ever genre of art, from photography to pixelart, to commercial art, to application skins. The downside is its slow load time. It's a hella busy site.

Do a google search for web sites with similar content and see what other people are doing. Search for web designer's web sites and check out their portfolios.

Or just start with a photograph and build a theme around the colors and shapes in it.

You seem to be a lot like me. I'm a great coder but I've got a lot to learn about aesthetics. :rolleyes: But hey, if I can learn the intricacies of Internet Explorer CSS support, I can learn graphic design. Start out as monkey see, monkey do. You'll catch on to the design philosophies in use and eventually learn how to break them.

[modifier_guy]

i an new also but buddy, i would say draw on paper. me, well i sat down pulled out my large book and sat and read for awhile. then opened a blank notepad and set up basics then added more. the topic is key!!

[Robert Wellock]

A Shrine to Robert Wellock, would be an interesting topic; though it would take a lot of research. Think of what hobbies you have, do a topic on that.

[AnacondaAndy]

I'm a great coder but I've got a lot to learn about aesthetics.

hehe....thats me for sure, altough I'm not a great coder, I'm ok at it and am learning.:) I checked out the forum you posted a link to, Great looking forum! I've been looking for one like that.

Thanks for all the advice guys! And more advice is welcome!

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by Robert Wellock
A Shrine to Robert Wellock, would be an interesting topic; though it would take a lot of research. Think of what hobbies you have, do a topic on that.
I might be persuaded to create such a shrine... :p

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by Paul Jr
Ryanbrill.com (http://www.ryanbrill.com/)
Navigate Australia (http://studentwork.qantm.com.au/akrespanis/NavAust/index.htm) (Work in progress)
Zeldman.com (http://www.zeldman.com/)
Meyerweb.com (http://www.meyerweb.com/)
CSS Edge (http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/)
Simplebits (http://www.simplebits.com/) zeldman's site is actually quite ugly. That asian chick is too shiny if you ask me.

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
zeldman's site is actually quite ugly. That asian chick is too shiny if you ask me.

yes, i agree;). actually, none of his title bar ppl are attractive:D
-Dan

DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to offend those posing for zeldman's site. I am simply stating an opinion and thus, is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings.:D;).

j/k, he needs to find some new ppl for that titlebar!!

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by DanieLTomaS
yes, i agree;). actually, none of his title bar ppl are attractive:D
-Dan

DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to offend those posing for zeldman's site. I am simply stating an opinion and thus, is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings.:D;).

j/k, he needs to find some new ppl for that titlebar!! and that shade of orange is God aweful. It looks like some poop after Don Pablos.

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
and that shade of orange is God aweful. It looks like some poop after Don Pablos.

yup, never seen a more irritating color. well, except maybe magenta:D
-Dan

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by DanieLTomaS
yup, never seen a more irritating color. well, except maybe magenta:D
-Dan Oh lol, possibly the worst layout on zengarden right here http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/077/077.css&page=0
it is jorribly colored :(. Heh whats your opionion on this red http://quasi-ke.servebeer.com/conceptghetto/index.html I just had an idea for a layout so I did a tiny bit of code, I do not think that will be the framework of any working layouts in the near future, but just what do you think of the red?

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
Oh lol, possibly the worst layout on zengarden right here http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/077/077.css&page=0
it is jorribly colored :(

*hides under a bed* mommy? is that scary purple site gone away yet?:D
-Dan

[PeOfEo]

read my edit!

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
Heh whats your opionion on this red http://quasi-ke.servebeer.com/conceptghetto/index.html I just had an idea for a layout so I did a tiny bit of code, I do not think that will be the framework of any working layouts in the near future, but just what do you think of the red?

well, ive never bin a big fan of red+grey/black together. i think the layout has potential tho:D but, thats just my opinion;)
-Dan

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by DanieLTomaS
well, ive never bin a big fan of red+grey/black together. i think the layout has potential tho:D but, thats just my opinion;)
-Dan well i jus wanted something different. I need to break out of my blues and greens. I was thinking if I made this full thing I would put a picture of this condemned building to the left as a fixed background and use it as a banner too with text on it. But right positioning I was thinking would be sort of fluid because it is to the right and it slides over the left, but at the same time it is not. Just a little thought thats been bumping around in this lil head of mine.

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
Oh lol, possibly the worst layout on zengarden right here http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/077/077.css&page=0
it is jorribly colored :(.

actually, i would have 2 disagree. this one is extremely hard to read:

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=005%2F005%2Ecss

well, at least it doesnt use magenta;)
-Dan

[PeOfEo]

That is fairly hidious. Here is one of my favorites: http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/076/076.css&page=0
I also liky egyptian dawn, Emmakade, and lost highway.

[Daniel T]

heres some other 'odd' ones:

What Lies Beneath (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=019%2F019%2Ecss) - uses horizontal scrolling, rather than vertical
Hedges (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=031%2F031%2Ecss) - kinda looks like that 'Bob The Builder' show. don't worry, i dont watch it!
prêt-à-orter (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=037%2F037%2Ecss) - rainbow person on the left really creeps me out!
Night Drive (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=064%2F064%2Ecss) - a little too plain for me, dark blue squares beside links just look like ugly 'splotches'. text is hard to read in 1024x768
Focus and Shoot (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=066%2F066%2Ecss) - a little 'too much';)
Ballade (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=068%2F068%2Ecss) - pretty oldfashioned

id say the other ones are pretty decent(or atleast, not horrible;)). but hey, its not like i could do any better!:D
-Dan

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by DanieLTomaS

Ballade (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=068%2F068%2Ecss) - pretty oldfashioned Well I like how the boxes are joined, its cleaver.

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by PeOfEo
Well I like how the boxes are joined, its cleaver.

yes, that is kinda cool, but its still too oldfashioned 4 me;)
-Dan

[Sam]

this (http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=http://www.timpelen.com/extra/zen/zengarden.css) is my personal favorite, but it requires a real browser (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)
It looks best if you scroll through once before hand, since they couldn't preload it, but its very cool. its kinda a joke to look at it in IE afterwords.

[PeOfEo]

its an interesting idea. Its not exactly functional, but it is unique. If it does not work well on ie it is not functional since that is 93% of what the internet uses according to thecounter.com for the month of febuary thus far.

[Sam]

what site is it basing this off? or all of jupiter media?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by samij586
what site is it basing this off? or all of jupiter media? huh???

[Sam]

on this (http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/February/browser.php) page, I found the 93% statistic you were using, but it obviously can't be measuring browser usage for the whole internet, so my question is, where are those statistics coming from?

[PeOfEo]

I said that, www.thecounter.com global statistics (it is inafacted owned by jupiter media but it covers much more then jupiter). Every page that uses a thecounter.com hit counter (which is a massive number) has its stats there. That is a very accurate sample I listed. Its actually 75% uses ie6 and 18% uses ie5, so I lumped them together.

[Sam]

I see, that makes much more sense, thanks for the clarification

[toicontien]

this is my personal favorite, but it requires a real browser

That's the sweetest design I've seen so far. I'm bookmarking that one!

its an interesting idea. Its not exactly functional, but it is unique.

There was nothing wrong with its functionality. The novelty of the design kept me scrolling.

Anyway, I'm off subject :D

[Sam]

There was nothing wrong with its functionality.

did you view it in IE?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by toicontien
That's the sweetest design I've seen so far. I'm bookmarking that one!



There was nothing wrong with its functionality. The novelty of the design kept me scrolling.

Anyway, I'm off subject :D It looks pretty on mozilla but lets see you run an ecommerce website or something with a layout like that just seems to utterly die in ie.

[Sam]

too bad ie doesn't work...
maybe they'll come out with ie 7 some day and it will be fully compliant with the standards from 1999

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by samij586
too bad ie doesn't work...
maybe they'll come out with ie 7 some day and it will be fully compliant with the standards from 1999 There are other things that I run into more that piss me off more then this. Mainly how things can jump out of alignment at different resolutions when using right align. Generally they slide 1 or 2 px left or right, but its bad when you have images for border and background and it all has to be exact. Another is the min height thing. I have a cleaver work around right now that I would not mind posting, but ie does not support min height which is cause for my cleaver use of owen's hack.

div.contentshell { /* ie can see me */
position:relative;
width:auto;
min-width:120px;
margin-left:166px;
margin-top:70px;
height:380px;
overflow:inherit;
right:13px;
margin-bottom:0px;
border:1px solid #0066CC;
border-top-width:0px;
background-color:#333333;
}
head:first-child+body div.contentshell { /* ie cant see me, owens hack */
position:relative;
width:auto;
min-width:120px;
margin-left:163px;
height:0%;
margin-top:70px;
min-height:345px;
right:10px;
margin-bottom:0px;
border:1px solid #0066CC;
border-top-width:0px;
background-color:#333333;
}
Ok I had to post it to show off. I used the regular height attribute on the first part where ie can see it and ie will stretch the div I noticed. Then on the second part I used min height since compliant browsers will not stretch the div more then the set height. But woops, the height attribute from part one still applies, so I set the height to a % since a % will stretch, and it is 0% so it would not cause any interfearence.

[Sam]

was looking for something like that the other day, post away

[Daniel T]

IE pissis me off so much! microsoft is so stupid. they invent entire os's, but cant even design a real browser. microsoft is so pathetic!
-Dan

ps:just venting some of my anger for microsoft;)

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by DanieLTomaS
IE pissis me off so much! microsoft is so stupid. they invent entire os's, but cant even design a real browser. microsoft is so pathetic!
-Dan

ps:just venting some of my anger for microsoft;) We already have a thread about this, lets not make it 2 threads. There was some debate about the ie box model a while back. Ie6 does use the popular box model with a strict doc type but they still has bugs. IE does piss me off at times. But lets not forget that every browser has bugs.
Mozilla: If you have a drop down menu over a div with any sort of scrolling or auto overflow it will fail to appear. Its handleing of java script is not the popular standard
Opera: has some css quirks in its box model. Images like to jump out of alignment and do not jive with the popular box model at times when ie and mozilla handle it beautifully.

[Daniel T]

ok, ill shut up;)

[emma12345]

go to coolhomepages.com.. you can find some great ideas there

[Salimacatwoman]

Originally posted by AnacondaAndy
I have been wanting to make a website for myself, and have tried several times to, but none turned out too good. Where is a good place to start with when designing a site(my problem is not with the coding, just thinking up a design)?

Well talking about my own experience:

I first did my site with Geocities and it's still there,but the problems are the pop ups and java scripts,etc,apart of all the big name to make the URL having first http://www.geocities.com/savipe/Wheelsforindependence.html
so I wanted my own site for my business and I got dreamweaver,it takes time to read what to do and all about the use of it and the great things you can do but it's worthy enough;) ,so the nice issue is that you can build your pages with it,buy a domain and even get a free hosting as I got mine and once you have almost all material done,upload all files and then you have a website:)

[AnacondaAndy]

Thanks all for your help:)

[Salimacatwoman]

Originally posted by AnacondaAndy
Thanks all for your help:)

Have you already started building your page?

[AnacondaAndy]

sort of...I have done a few mockups and drawings...but am still trying to think up a better design...:)

[Salimacatwoman]

Originally posted by AnacondaAndy
sort of...I have done a few mockups and drawings...but am still trying to think up a better design...:)

Cool,post your Url so we can see it!:p

[AnacondaAndy]

As I said it is just a mock up, and I think I most likly will use something else... :)

Here it is... (http://users.iglide.net/tonnesenteam/andys_mockup.jpg)

[Salimacatwoman]

Originally posted by AnacondaAndy
As I said it is just a mock up, and I think I most likly will use something else... :)

Here it is... (http://users.iglide.net/tonnesenteam/andys_mockup.jpg)

Looks good but what if you add more info and things...I liked the colors,good luck at it!;)