Look AT THIS !

[XaraInterfaceNebie]

Here is my new website interface that i am doing for...myself...

Ross Allen
(Not Made in Xara X)
SAVE THE WALES !

COLLECT THEM ALL !

[This message was edited by Ross Allen on October 18, 2001 at 19:23.]

[XaraInterfaceNebie]

Here is my new website interface that i am doing for...myself...

Ross Allen
(Not Made in Xara X)
SAVE THE WALES !

COLLECT THEM ALL !

[This message was edited by Ross Allen on October 18, 2001 at 19:23.]

[furbawl]

Graphics look good, but look more suited for page layout than web design.

I don't know how good a web designer you are, or your knowledge of the web's color limitations, slicing and creating custom-tables in HTML, but something like this would scare the sweet zombie-Jesus outa me.

My main gripe, however, would be the darkish "NEW AGE SOFTWARE" title. It might look better without the darker grays in the lettering's sheen, or maybe scrap the metallic look altogether. Or, if your original file is layered, keep the title design as is and replace the black bg with another color...or maybe horizontal lines that can be tiled as a bg pattern (again, knowledge of HTML slicing and custom/nested tables, or at least how they work, would benefit you in this case).

If you're just beginning to learn your way around a W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. web page editor (re: GoLive; Dreamweaver), take my advice, find the software manual (or go to a GoLive or Dreamweaver forum...a better solution) and study up on creating backgrounds for a web page & table cells. Once you know all that (the web editor does most of the work), you can create great looking layouts. Note: you have to force your mind to think a certain way...it's more like 'problem solving'. Not as simple as pasting text/images into a print document (re: Quark; PageMaker) but the process will gets easier.

Remember the more colors there are in an image, depending on how you optimize the graphic for the web, the longer it will take to download. And that, my friend, is the key. And, again, you need to do some complex problem solving (if you intent to slice the image for custom tabling): like, what parts of the image will nest in tables and what parts will be used for any bg tiling. Personally, unless it is a photo or jpeg images, I always optimize my graphics as GIFs and restrict the color spectrum to less than 200 colors. Doing it this way means color will be more striking and download time will decrease. I also avoid shading or shadows, unless I can get away with using only three colors for the shadow - yes, it is possible!

If you know Flash (I have no use for it as yet), then you could make the title graphic into vector images, animate it and still download just as quick as a GIF image using only 100 colors.

For designing a whole web page, I don't use image editors as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or CorelPaint. If you can, get yourself Adobe ImageStyler (a rather cheap but powerful package, now discontinued and renamed LiveMotion). Type "ImageStyler" into the search box at google.com and find references to this amazing product. Or get Macromedia's Fireworks: this option has more gadgets and is more in tune to current web design tricks than ImageStyler. These are the best web page editors available and, unlike other brain-numbing apps, these are actually fun to learn.
And, with ImageStyler, you could do exactly what you did with your artwork attachment oh-so quickly. I thoroughly recommend getting it ... try second-hand stores or trading papers.

I hope this helps you on your way.

spacecat@froggy.com.au

[This message was edited by furbawl on December 31, 2001 at 13:47.]