I am currently a graphic designer looking to expand my talents into the web design arena. Has anyone else done this? Which progams did you add to your corral? Currently, I use Quark, PageMaker, Illustrator, Photoshop and the like, and i have access to GoLive, which I will begin to learn soon. I taught myself all the other programs, and am wondering if I can do the same with GoLive. Any good books I should buy? Ialso want to know if anyone does design only, instead of design and the html stuff to post the web sites. Thanks in advance.
I use Paintshop Pro, but I only do amateur (read: free) work. If I had the inclination to do it professionally, I’d try to snag up Photoshop, but PSP’s what I have, so that’s good enough for me. For HTML, I’m lazy and stick with Frontpage… again, it’s what I have, so it’s good enough for me. I’m also curious about other editing software, so I’ll stick around and see what others post.
(By the way… Paintshop Pro is sort of the “Poor Man’s Photoshop”, if you’re curious).
I know a few web deisgners that swear by the Dreamweaver/Fireworks suite. I’ve used Dreamweaver myself, and although I’m nowhere near a professional, I did find it pretty easy to use, and fairly powerful.
if you are skilled in HTML, VERY SKILLED that is, use BBEdit, if you are… less endowed with HTML skills, Adobe Pagemill is a very good purchase…
those are the only two products I use, and this is the results…
And if you aren’t skilled in HTML, by all means do become skilled. You’ll have much more control over web site if you know how the code works.
If you still want to use a software program to do your HTML, avoid Microsoft FrontPage like the plague. This comes not merely from an avowed enemy of Gates & Co., but someone who’s seen web developers of all sorts recoil in horror at the very mention of FrontPage.
Many people, on the other hand, love Dreamweaver.
Oh, yes, and BBEdit does indeed rock. (Or, as their ads say, “It Doesn’t Suck.”) You can get a free lite version of it at http://www.barebones.com .
Ad Noctum, why do you say VERY SKILLED? Anyone can use it, and if one’s intent is to learn HTML, why not use the best text editor there is?
First of all, Drewbert, I see the Constellation. Great quote.
Now, I have zero HTML skills, but am very skilled in design and all the programs listed above. I need to know what it takes to get a page from the design stage to the web. A girl I work wiht said she has designed many web pages, but isn’t involved with the latter step. Can I just do one? When you say I should learn HTML, how do I go about doing that? You guys are helpful so far, which I appreciate. This aspect of design is all new to me, but I feel that I have all the periphery knowledge to teach myself the programs. Again, any good books?
Dreamweaver is probably THE best WYSIWYG editor out there, since it mangles the code less than other programs (including Front Page, PageMill, and others), and allows for very powerful DHTML integration when you feel ready to make that jump. I personally use Allaire Homesite which is basically a pure HTML editor with many cool features built in, but this presupposes a great deal of HTML knowledge. As for a good book for HTML, the one I used when I was learning HTML at the university was the one with a koala on the cover. I know this is almost worthless, but this company uses animals for all their computer books, so maybe you know which line I’m thinking of. If not, I’ll look it up when I get home.
You should also learn Flash, BTW. Much money to be had for flashmasters…
If it’s got a fuzzy/scaly/feathery critter in black and white on the cover, odds are it’s published by O’Reilly. http://www.oreilly.com. Usually very good books.
Might I also recommend http://www.webmonkey.com for good tutorials (don’t be afraid to go to the Webmonkey for Kids section - good stuff there too.) And once you’ve got a little bit of learnin’ under your belt, and if you don’t mind a lot of email in your inbox, sign up for the monkeyjunkies discussion list where you can usually get an answer to questions you might have. http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/mail/faq.html
Good going Drewbert, that’s them! ::looks around:: Um, well, I’ll be going now…
I just started work as a web monkey so I’ll toss in what I know. Though, I do teh code and leave the design to others.
I also suggest knowing HTML before starting, even if you do decide to stick strictly to design. Or at least learn about web-safe colors and how to convert RGB to HTML code. HTML is not hard at all to pick up since there are really only a dozen or so commands to remember.
I recommend HTML 4 for the World Wide Web, Fourth Edition: Visual QuickStart Guide, Elizabeth Castro. It explains HTML in a way that the non-technical minded can understand. Lots and lots of visual examples :). It is produced by Peachpit Press which has a pretty good line of instruction manuals for most programs out there.
Flash seems to be the hot thing currently in web design. You can learn more about it here: http://www.macromedia.com/
While I do not have first hand professional experience, I have used 90% of the above programs and all of them are good nat different things. It depends on what kind of designing you want to do. What kind of websites do you want to do? Do you want to do corporate websites that are geared more toward information or a show websites with lots of bells and whistles? Corporate ones are pretty easy to design since you only need to move word and pictures around. If you want more “show” websites then you need to start learning programming languages so that you can do Java, Flash, etc…
My brother started out as a Graphics designer and got a degree in it and did that for a couple years. He learned Photoshop, Pagemaker, Quark, Illustrator, etc… Then he decided to move to web page design and did not have to learn much besides Flash and HTML. Below is a link to a commercial site he did. When he did that website it was all in Flash which was pretty easy for him to learn as I recall. Also below is a link to his own website. That one was one that he did when he first moved into the web design biz. Both websites have a similar style, but each ones conveys a different message. His personal website is more about information but has some cool little animations and stuff like that. The one he did as a job is geared towards sales so it looks cool and is fun to play with, but has little “valuable” information. Each one was built using different programs.
Anyway I hope some of this info helped you.
-N
p.s. I apologize to any web designers when I say that this stuff is easy. All designing is hard and takes a lot of knowledge and skill to do well. I am just trying to point out that some stuff is easier than other, IMO.
His personal website:
http://www.2xtreme.net/christian
This is one he did for a job:
http://www.newdealdesign.com
Thank you all! I’m on my way to web mistress-dom.