thinking of new web designs

[mrdeeye]

I have just gotten my first paying job as a web designer...and the design i have goin right now is really basic....there is another person that is asking about me doing a web site for his company and here is my question...how do you think of more web designs that dont all look the same? is it the graphics? or the way its laid out? i apologize if this is hard to understand...its late and i just thought i would post this to see what sort of comments i could get ...thanks in advance

[TennBikeBerk]

For me, web designs have two parts to them. The primary goal should be usuability and erogonomics. Google is a terrific example of this. Plan white background, with black text. It could not be simpler. However, it gets the job done in a efficent and timely manner and is laid out very professionally.

The second part of web design, for me, is the looks. Adding a flashy color scheme, animations, pictures, etc. all spice up the site. They are not as important as the functionality however.

[GimmeDaMic]

Basically, you have to decide what the site is going to be used for first. User accessibility is also another factor. For example, I just made my site XHTML and CSS compliant. It also uses no tables at all, just css.

First you have to decide on how you want the information laid out and do so by each section's priority in needing to be seen. After you get that, then it's time for asthetics. Just go to a bunch of different sites and look arround for ideas. Look for photoshop tutorial sites, they usually have some interesting layouts to show people. One creative way of using some CSS techniques was used to make bungie.net's website. The overall effect is great.

You could always try one more way... every now and then I'll find a good Sci-Fi movie to get ideas, lol. Star-Trek don't count. I mean movies of future crap like Minority Report or something.

[Vigo]

bungie.net:

I don't know why I never thought of using fixed div layers instead of frames...

Oh well.

And why doesn't star trek count?

[GimmeDaMic]

Cuz it don't :P What bungie.net did is a great idea and I can't believe I never thought of it.

[mrdeeye]

how does CSS affect the way images are used...i thought CSS was only to format fonts, colors, backgrounds etc?

[mxfury]

If you assign a div a class or id you can control the dimensions, where it goes, boarder etc.

Images, you can position them absolutely, I don't know what else.

[mrdeeye]

yeah i just read about that in a css tutorial...thanks