Question goes out to all you web gurus.

i am interested in designing a site such as:
http://www.guistuff.com

i am aware that you can use xarax to slice up images but i dont know how you go about inserting the text. So my question is this:

Do you go off and draw a lovely backround in xarax leaving space for the text and then open up a new site in dreamweaver and insert the text and graphic? or is there a more robust way of doing things, perhaps to draw the graphic in xarax and in some way to leave the text as editable so that the quality is not lost?? As you see im quite new at this so i dont know what to search for because i dont know the terminology and/or methodology. I just need a few pointers. Thanks a million
regards
Michael.