Waiting for De Sign


How long does it take to design a website?

Actually I've no idea, because I've been doing something quite different - figuring out how to design a website. So far it's taken:

  • An hour to understand how to do frames in HTML - and then decide I don't need to use frames at all.

  • Two hours to understand the various ways button-links can be made to change colour when your mouse hovers over them - before deciding it's all too complicated and I don't need to have them anyway.

  • Another two hours to figure out why my designs for buttons came out in the wrong colours and the wrong sizes. Actually I still don't know why Photoshop can't map RGB to CMYK without turning everything grey, or why CorelDraw lies to me about graphical dimensions.

    But sometimes you've just got to be content with finding a solution, instead of knowing what the problem was. Here's my logo, version 3:




  • Half an hour to work out why the relative URLs weren't working - or rather, half an hour to work out the website telling me about relative URLs was wrong.

  • 90 minutes to sift through half a dozen freeware, opensource javascript mp3 streamers. To find the one which does what I want...doesn't use javascript.


(And if you understood all that, you spend too much time in front of a computer.)

After all of which, I am now going to have a Boxing Day afternoon nap. Because steep learning curves are the kind of hill you can only climb up, not roll down.

4 comments:

  1. Speaking as a true fan of them, 'Waiting for De Sign' is an excellent bad pun. :o)

    I like the logo.

    I'd like to provide you with my handy guide to handling frames in HTML, as based on my own personal experience:

    1 - Stare blankly at online guide to creating frames using HTML.
    2 - Find WYSIWYG HTML editor.
    3 - Install WYSIWYG HTML editor.
    4 - Create basic page template using WYSIWYG HTML editor, intending to add everything else in manually later.
    5 - Instead spend several years trying to strip out all the crap code WYSIWYG HTML editor has inserted into page.
    6 - Shout loudly, delete ludicrously bug-strewn page, uninstall WYSIWYG HTML editor.
    7 - Stare blankly at online guide to creating frames using HTML.
    8 - Decide to do without frames.
    9 - Tell anyone who asks: "No, no, i wanted it to look like that. It's a deliberate design statement."

    My handy guide to designing web buttons is very similar, but with the words 'Button designer' replacing the words 'HTML editor'... ;o)

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  2. Good luck designing your website. I have no clue how to even start designing a website--or a web page! Thank goodness Blogger had templates I could just pick and use.

    Just remember to have fun! Go with your instincts and play around with it. And save, save, save all your work! That way, if you decide to change stuff, you don't have to start all over from scratch and lose the stuff you do like.

    Cheers!

    (--)....(--)
    _I_...._I_

    Happy New Year!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Aethelread:

    I refuse to use WYSIWIG HTML editors on principle. The principle being that I want my webpage to be 2KB, instantly loading, easily debuggable, easily changable...instead of 4MB, slow loading, impossible to understand nevermind debug and impossible to change for the same reasons.

    Someone once said the best HTML editor is Windows Notepad, and I agree.

    The buttons are designed in CorelDraw and Photoshop - though Photoshop is only used as a cropping and resizing tool.



    @Eroswings:

    Oh I think you know more than you think. Seeing as you taught me a few things about HTML.



    @Camy:

    Seeing as you're a proper website designer (and I'm only an improper one) I'll take your advice be sure to include some metas. I'd actuall completely forgotten about them, so thanks.

    ReplyDelete