How To Build A Website From Scratch
So you want to learn how to build a website from Scratch. The purpose of this article is to summarise the process of building a static website using standard technologies such as photoshop, XHTML, CSS etc.
When building websites for my clients I regularly use a content management system such as Joomla. I will talk about content management systems later in this article.
I generally think about the web design process as split into the following stages…
Design and preparation Programing Content Management System (CMS) integration Adding content, plugins and developing the site functionality
Design and Preparation
Most designers use Photoshop and/or Illustrator for the design. They are both similar in functionality. Photoshop as the name suggests is generally better for processing photographs and Illustrator is generally better for illustrations such as logos, icons etc.
I prefer to use photoshop but that’s only because I am more comfortable using photoshop.
There are essentially two editing methods, which are used when creating a design. One method is pixel based and the other method is vector based. An example of pixel based editing is processing an photograph in some way and an example of vector based editing may include the illustration of cartoon character etc. You can shape and manipulate vector images as many times as want giving you much more control over the design. Vector based editing is a skill that requires time and patience to learn but I would recommend focusing your efforts in developing this skill.
The preparation part of this stage referrers to slicing up the design into individual images. These images will then be pieced back together in the programing stage. When creating a design it is important to label all of the different layers and group all related layers into groups or “layer sets”. This will make life easier when cropping the different parts of the design. The process of cropping or slicing a design can require a lot consideration depending on the complexity of the design.
What format should I save the cropped files?
There are many different image formats. However, I am only going to mention the three most common formats used in web design and these are PNG,JPEG and GIF.
In general PNG’s are useful for images, which require a transparent background. However, transparent PNG’s are larger in size in comparison to JPEG or GIF.
February 24 2011 | FREE WEB PAGE TEMPLATES, Professional Designs At The Cheapest Cost | Comments Off