Bradanderson
Posts: 10

Hey again,
Another question for those who design web sites out there. How do you initially "visualize" or design your site? I just drew out on paper what I was thinking, then went to Fireworks and started making my elements- buttons, graphics, etc.
Then I went to DW and started putting together these things into my page. That was before the wonderful world of CSS.
Now I design and write the CSS together along with my html page and change things as the need arises. I also try different font and color combinations until I find what I like and what fits the theme of the page.
So, my question is how many people design the individual elements and then assemble them later vs something else
Brad?

Joe Gillespie
Posts: 528

The first thing to do is to design a plain vanilla page with no styling but with all the content semantically marked up in the (X)HTML and validated. That is the 'design' phase. Now your content can be 'styled' for desktop computers, printouts, PDAs, mobile phones, Web-enabled microwave oven or whatever.

I think that producing the 'style' first and then trying to design around it is the wrong way to go - no matter what you are designing - buildings, cars, audio equipment. Design is about making something work best for its purpose. Design first, then embellish.

In BBEdit, I can add the styles in the source code and see the effect (in real time as I type) in a second window. I have Dreamweaver MX and GoLive CS but neither of them produce good CSS and I don't use them.

Quite often at an early stage, I just assemble the divs with temporary coloured backgrounds to see how they fit together, interact and behave across browsers. Then, it's just a matter of tweaking the selectors. I usually start with the CSS on the same page as the HTML until the design is finalised (and validated) and then move it out into an external file so that it can be accessed by other pages in the same set.

Bradanderson
Posts: 10

Thanks for your reply. I've also read in other forums from designers who actually put everything together using Photoshop and then cut it up and make their pages from there. I understnad that helps to visualize the finished product, but is this still a "standard" way to do things?
Brad