Let's
begin with discussing the market facts ....
As the owner of a web-design company, I know what clients usually
expect before placing an order:
"I
want my website to look
different and feel different . . . !"
"The site must project my business image."
"Use my corporate colours prominently . . ."
"Design something to make my competitors bite their fingers
. . ."
"And yes . . . I want to launch it in a week. Seven days
flat!"
"And remember, above all, it should load fast!"
Well,
friends . . . speed kills . . . but in today's competitive web-design
scenario, speed and creative concepts are the only vehicles that
can help you race ahead of others. Having an innovative layout
ready - hot and quick - is what will make a winner out of you
in this demanding industry. So, first study your client. A smart
way of doing this would be to summarize his expectations into
a 'mission statement' or goal to challenge your creative stamina.
For e.g. the above expectations could simply be concise to read
-" a stunning website with graphics and colors related to
my business and which loads quickly and will be up and active
in a jiffy!"
Come
to think of it, it's really simple designing a website. Just open
FrontPage* or MS Word* select your stuff and save as HTML and
the Web page is ready! By using web authoring tools like FrontPage*
or saving HTML from MS Word*, anybody can create a 'quickie' web-site,
but what about the Design part? The aesthetics? The appeal ....
?
It is here that the question for a step-wise approach to professional
web designing arises. There must be some path for a web-designer
to follow, which gives his client the best-designed website in
the shortest possible time.
Therefore,
this step-wise approach facilitates:
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Designing
a website, that keeps in mind all the basic elements like
your client's corporate colours , logos & symbols,
product photograph gallery, etc.
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Optimization
of graphic images so as to reduce the size of a page and
thus enable it to load fast.
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Converting
a graphically designed page to web format (HTML), so it
can be uploaded on Internet.
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Design
the Home Page and Inside Pages, using Photo Editing software
like Corel Draw*, Adobe Photoshop*, Macromedia Firework*,
Corel Photopaint* etc.
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Optimize
& Dice the pages using software like Adobe Image Ready*
or Macromedia Firework*.
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Save
as HTML through the Photo Editing software and provide
links using web-authoring tools like Microsoft Frontpage*,
Macromedia Dreamweaver*.
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Internet became popular very fast, especially after invention
of browsers, which made it possible to view pictures along with
text information. That made many users get connected to Internet.
The point here is a graphics plays very important role in web
design. Pictures or images if presented in the right way can communicate
and drive your message better than words. If you create a web
page using HTML without graphics, you are under- utilizing the
power of the Internet.