Graphically Designing a website

[silent11]

What is your drawing board? How do you lay out how you want a page to look and navigate? Or when working with clients how do you show them a proposal, more importantly, in what software do you whip up that proposal.

I tend to use photoshop, but I'm sure there has got to be a better "page design" sort of program out there. Something more like MS Publisher where you can drag images around the canvas and the text changes accordingly.

Any ideas?

[Hyperdelicious]

Let's begin with the drawing board... I mean that literally. Before touching the computer I look over collected information and begin with preliminary sketches. From those sketches - I chose two or three of my favorites. The selected sketches are then drafted out on paper and presented to the client. Together we discuss which comp(s) would best solve their needs. Then it's onto Photoshop, Illustrator, and/or Freehand to build the layout. The client is then presented with images of the proposed design... this usually consists of home page, and two to three sub pages. Once the client approves the layout it's back to photoshop to touch up the layout and splice it apart. Finally, everything comes together in notepad, dreamweaver, bbedit, and/or flash.

As for proposals - if you are referring to an estimate or quote. When I started putting together proposals they were done in Microsoft Word... Now, I'm using Adobe InDesign a great page layout application.