Web Design/Development

I've always wanted to throw the topic of web design out there and get to know some other hardcore web designers. I'm pretty sure this is a good place for the topic.

How many of you are active web designers? For me, its one of my favorite passtimes next to drawing. I'd love to see some other people's concept sites and share ideas.

Some sites I've worked on:
http://www.designdraft.net/ <-- personal blog
http://www.ani-6.com/ <-- old old idea for a site
http://www.ani-6.com/blueos <-- my CDS site
http://www.ani-6.com/lagdemo <-- my club's site (Working)
http://www.ani-6.com/concept <-- a revision of ani-6.com I'm working on

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Curious about the movable window in your "Studio lag" website. I'm wondering how you managed to keep the cursor locked onto the same place on the window while dragging. I mean very rapid dragging back and forth, not normal movements. I programmed something similar from scratch many years ago but didn't get around to fixing the problem where if you dragged the window off the visible part of the screen, the cursor would get confused.

This is my VERY old website >_<:
http://www.nightfall-design.com

This the the window experiment thing that never got past a rough prototype, also old (IE only):
http://www.nightfall-design.com/Expe...I-Skin7-nw.htm

There's nowhere I can't reach.

hi ultima

i personally like what you have done with designdraft, but the "more or less" is still blurry

i also like webdesign, haven't done much lately, but you can check out this blog:

http://podezing.free.fr/kaolla/ < each section has a different design

http://www.ps3camp.info/ < another blog i want to redesign soon

http://forum.ps3camp.info/ < a invision board i spent quite some time redesignin

all this stuff in in french of course

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It's been a while since I last designed anything so these are kinda old.

InGo'S RaNcH
My Zelda fan-site. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I really love the series (although I do like them) and it's all I can think of. The topic is the least I care about. This website is like my little frankenstein. It's the place where I experiment with new stuff like Ajax and some nice scripts, that's why it will take a while to load. I have currently 3 different designs which change dynamically thanks to a javascript code that switches the CSS stylesheets. On the left menu there's a section entitled "IR a la carte". Click on those 3 buttons and the design will change.

Anime Omega
A friend's website which he asked me to design. It's been more than a year since I designed this, but I still like it.



I got a job a while ago where I had to design websites, so I designed quite a few...

http://www.qbureau.com <-- that's the place I worked at
http://www.qbureau.com/proyectos/esi...dule=planteles
http://ingosranch.gameshunters.com/t...ac/almacen.php <-- This was a CMS Admin page. Most ideas came from the Jaws project.
http://ingosranch.gameshunters.com/temp/tcm/ <-- A very, very fast design that was like an emergency thing. That's why it's so damn simple.
http://ingosranch.gameshunters.com/t...alize/test.php <-- And this one was supposed to be my portfolio... or something.

That's all I can think of right now... Some good stuff above, by the way. I liked the design at http://www.ps3camp.info . The menu is awesome.

Oh, and Ultima, could you share the font you used at this logo?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Ulysses

Curious about the movable window in your "Studio lag" website. I'm wondering how you managed to keep the cursor locked onto the same place on the window while dragging. I mean very rapid dragging back and forth, not normal movements. I programmed something similar from scratch many years ago but didn't get around to fixing the problem where if you dragged the window off the visible part of the screen, the cursor would get confused.

I used a Prototype library specifically designed for a window system. Its pretty much AJAX and Javascript at its best. I'm not the best at Javascript yet, so I can't explain how it works, but I can give you a link to the library's site.

Originally Posted by MeTaL_oRgY

Oh, and Ultima, could you share the font you used at this logo?

I don't know the name off hand, but I'll definitely get it to you in the next couple of days when I open up Photoshop or Illustrator again.

Originally Posted by Hello_Kitty

hi ultima

i personally like what you have done with designdraft, but the "more or less" is still blurry

Thanks a lot, I think its blurry because its so thin. I'm going to do a revision to the renovatio theme in a month or two, so I'll probably look into that then. It won't be a completely different theme, but something more complete and true to my original vision. When I come up with a mockup of the updated theme I'll post it. Its a lot better than it is now, in my opinion!

I love everyone's sites by the way. The four of us that have posted here have pretty much different styles in approaches, and thats pretty refreshing. Although I think metalorgy and I have pretty similar tastes with the whole Web 2.0 thing going on.

I was speaking idiomatically.

My only paid projects so far are for this start-up company (as part of my internship):

http://www.decisionware-sg.com/competition/rules.htm

One of the banner designs for the index page



Prototype design for this year, which was never finished (created the logo too):

http://www.decisionware-sg.com/competition/2006/


An obnoxious design which I threw together in a few hours:

http://ams.bigblah.net/

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Heh.

I've made a couple of layouts from scratch but they are all lost to time. And beleive me, I don't miss them. Nowadays, I usually just take a layout and then modify it's images / css / maybe a little basic positions enough so that it looks different.

I'll link two things:

http://crankeye.org/forums/

SMF. Though this is now unused.

http://rmrk.net/ Made to match the main site (http://crankeye.com). I submitted this theme to the SMF site, though the version you see running here has been tweaked quite a bit over the weeks.

FELIPE NO

Ah, SMF themes, cool stuff.

I actually find it harder to tweak a layout, especially if I want to really change it up, I find a fresh start from scratch is the cleanest and fastest solution.

I have Ultima to thank for my complete switch to 100% CSS layouts in my designs. CSS is easy, making sure it works in all major browsers, that's the bitch lol.

www.renaissanceconsulting.ca

That would be my company's website that I recently finished up. There's still small ongoing changes, and a few bits of content yet to add, but it's basically complete.

I'm working on another, bit bigger project, which will be online once I'm done with the massive overhaul it's undergoing. Currently it resides on my laptop. Once it's stable and secure, I'll post a link to it online.

I've really only been into web design stuff for the past couple years or so. I never figured I'd be one to get into this line of work, but I got a chance to work on a php ecommerce site, when I didn't even know any php at all, and it just kind of went from there.

I really hadn't put a lot of time or effort into learning the design aspect of things until the past 4 to 6 months. I've finally kicked the tables habit, and can develop clean efficient layouts pretty damn fast.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

http://www.zucchiniblossom.com
This was a site I did for my cousin's kickass and popular Mediterranean-style restaurant. Ashamed of myself for creating such an abomination, I learned CSS in three months to redesign their site.

http://www.sky-render.com/test/zb2
This is their redesigned page. The project hasn't gone anywhere because my dumbass cousin refuses to give me any data to put on their site. :/ Most people would be glad to have a web designer do pro work for FREE!

http://www.sky-render.com/test/fc2
A slight modification to the incomplete website for my hosting company. Lack of motivation has put our company on ice for a while until I'm done school at least. It could use a couple small tweaks and some actual content :/

Originally Posted by Ultima

How many of you are active web designers? For me, its one of my favorite passtimes next to drawing. I'd love to see some other people's concept sites and share ideas.

Some sites I've worked on:
http://www.designdraft.net/ <-- personal blog
http://www.ani-6.com/ <-- old old idea for a site
http://www.ani-6.com/blueos <-- my CDS site
http://www.ani-6.com/lagdemo <-- my club's site (Working)
http://www.ani-6.com/concept <-- a revision of ani-6.com I'm working on

I understand the minimalistic theme you had going for your websites, but it just doesn't come out quite right. I think for designdraft, there should be some font diversity. Arial/Helvetica is just not a pretty font; too plain. A little dark gray to offset the black would be slightly more pleasing to eye, as well.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Render

http://www.zucchiniblossom.com
This was a site I did for my cousin's kickass and popular Mediterranean-style restaurant. Ashamed of myself for creating such an abomination, I learned CSS in three months to redesign their site.

http://www.sky-render.com/test/zb2
This is their redesigned page. The project hasn't gone anywhere because my dumbass cousin refuses to give me any data to put on their site. :/ Most people would be glad to have a web designer do pro work for FREE!

That's like, light-years apart.

How does one pick up aesthetics in 3 months, I wonder.

Most amazing jew boots

I've built several pages in the past few years, the stuff I made in the beginning is pretty awful, so I won't mention those. The stuff I made since I started learning PHP/MySQL is still pretty recent, so I'll list a few. I still have copies of those sites lying around, I should set up an archive or something :'D

www.bigwhoop.nl - That's my own site thingy, mostly used as a blog or whatever. I'm not dedicated enough to update this stuff unless I've made a big improvement to the scripting. It's just nice to have something to fondle around with and test new scripts I cooked up.

sotp.bigwhoop.nl - the current website of a WoW guild I was asked to built for a friend of mine. Since I have the space to spare, I host it as well. It was a pain getting this to work in combination with vBulletin, but it all worked out okay. The layout's a bit confusing, apparently. So I'm currently working on a new one.

http://84.26.94.197/phoenix-new/ - The new website of the WoW guild mentioned above. This gave me an opportunity to expand the CMS script further and experiment with some new features. I'm kind of proud of the Guides section, but I should thanks Ax for helping me out to set this up. Since they wanted it to be more WoW-ish than the current site, I stole borrowed a lot of images from other existing WoW sites. So I'm not particularly proud of the design. But as long as the 'customer' is happy, I'm fine with it as well. =D

There are a few more, but I don't think they're running any more. After this page I have a few more assignments ready.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bigblah

That's like, light-years apart.

How does one pick up aesthetics in 3 months, I wonder.

I know, it's pretty crazy, but that's about the same thing that I did over the past few months, only my improvements were more internal, just because we knew how we wanted the site to look, I simply took the wrong method of laying it out and ran with it all the way. So to the end user it looked alright, but was a bitch to work with. Hence my current headache of an overhaul. ;_;

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Accedo Dominatus
My old WoW guild site. Was an experiment, of sorts, and didn't turn out too bad.

Bay City Central
My former high school (designed the site years ago), and was really my only true paying job.

There are some other older ones that have come and gone. I have another in development but nothing that I wish to really post at the moment. I've been focusing on the system behind the site rather than the design, so far.

Most amazing jew boots

I'm only three and a half months away from graduating with my Web Design diploma. The more I think about it though, the more I just don't want to do this as my main long-term career. It's something I'd rather do as a side freelance job.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to work fluidly with Macromedia Director in order to make a portfolio of my web sites. I'm having a hard time though, since I'm practically new to the program.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Erisu Kimu

I'm only three and a half months away from graduating with my Web Design diploma. The more I think about it though, the more I just don't want to do this as my main long-term career. It's something I'd rather do as a side freelance job.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to work fluidly with Macromedia Director in order to make a portfolio of my web sites. I'm having a hard time though, since I'm practically new to the program.

Is a diploma in web design that annoying? I was considering going to school for web design but I couldn't find any schools for it. A lot of the schools I applied to have things like graphic design and digital media in which you can take web design courses, but no specific major that is specified as web design.

Leaning more towards Illustration or Graphic Design though.

FELIPE NO

The frist one isn't 800x600 friendly and the second one is optimized only for 1024. Kinda sucks ain't it. Yes I use tables, I wish I had more knowledge in CSS but I know I've tried so hard.

I just don't find the box model that good. Everytime I see text out of their boxes, even in important sites like A List Apart and so on.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Ultima

Is a diploma in web design that annoying? I was considering going to school for web design but I couldn't find any schools for it. A lot of the schools I applied to have things like graphic design and digital media in which you can take web design courses, but no specific major that is specified as web design.

Leaning more towards Illustration or Graphic Design though.

Not annoying. Frustrating. I still like it though. I'm just not really a graphics guy, so my skills in Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks are average at best. I can make a couple of decent layouts and I can provide content, but that's as far as I'm going. I love doing the content.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Erisu Kimu

Not annoying. Frustrating. I still like it though. I'm just not really a graphics guy, so my skills in Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks are average at best. I can make a couple of decent layouts and I can provide content, but that's as far as I'm going. I love doing the content.

You and I could get along well. I HATE doing the content, but love doing the initial site design. :P

What exactly are you learning in your web design classes? I've always been curious since a girl from my class dropped out of Networking to enroll for a web class.

If it's HTML and CSS, then no thanks. I wouldn't mind some PHP and Photoshop classes since I'm average at best. PHP, I don't even know. SQL and Javascript I'm learning in my Programming classes this semester and next. I like doing the HTML, CSS, design and Photoshop portions the best. I would like to start a web design business sometime, but I need a back-end coding partner to make my sites dynamic. I can't do it. :P

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Render, html and css are just as much a part of webdesign as php is. php outputs html files, so you still need to know how to make it work even if it's going to be powered by php.

Or....are you saying that you wouldn't want those classes because you already have skills in that area. It's great to reread things lol.

PHP is best learned on one's own, starting projects from scratch. I've always found it's the only way to truly learn it, because it has so many functions and variations on how to do things, that if you only use the methods they teach in a school, you won't be as skilled as if you learned all the ins and outs, and when it's best to use the different techniques.

Maybe I'm just biased because I got nothing out of any programming classes I have ever been in.

On another note, I've also been contemplating starting a web design business sometime, however I tend to prefer working on the guts of a site, not the design part. As much as I can do alright in that department, I just prefer to be playing with the database and internal code stuffs. We should talk.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Qube

Render, html and css are just as much a part of webdesign as php is. php outputs html files, so you still need to know how to make it work even if it's going to be powered by php.

Or....are you saying that you wouldn't want those classes because you already have skills in that area. It's great to reread things lol.

PHP is best learned on one's own, starting projects from scratch. I've always found it's the only way to truly learn it, because it has so many functions and variations on how to do things, that if you only use the methods they teach in a school, you won't be as skilled as if you learned all the ins and outs, and when it's best to use the different techniques.

Maybe I'm just biased because I got nothing out of any programming classes I have ever been in.

On another note, I've also been contemplating starting a web design business sometime, however I tend to prefer working on the guts of a site, not the design part. As much as I can do alright in that department, I just prefer to be playing with the database and internal code stuffs. We should talk.

Agreed. Learning PHP (HTML and CSS also) is best if you do it on your own. When I had HTML classes they were so damn outdated I lol'd at my teacher and end up teaching him about XHTML. Same with PHP. I don't know much of it, but the truth is that anytime I got inside a PHP class, I only got bored. I'm quite sure it's because at school they teach you the syntaxis, but when you're coding you are actually using your brain... practicing the logics.

also, if you ever get a web-design business up and running and need some help, count me in. I'm pretty good at CSS, XHTML and the graphics, and can be of some help at javascript and PHP.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Qube

Render, html and css are just as much a part of webdesign as php is. php outputs html files, so you still need to know how to make it work even if it's going to be powered by php.

Or....are you saying that you wouldn't want those classes because you already have skills in that area. It's great to reread things lol.

PHP is best learned on one's own, starting projects from scratch. I've always found it's the only way to truly learn it, because it has so many functions and variations on how to do things, that if you only use the methods they teach in a school, you won't be as skilled as if you learned all the ins and outs, and when it's best to use the different techniques.

Maybe I'm just biased because I got nothing out of any programming classes I have ever been in.

On another note, I've also been contemplating starting a web design business sometime, however I tend to prefer working on the guts of a site, not the design part. As much as I can do alright in that department, I just prefer to be playing with the database and internal code stuffs. We should talk.

I'm all for self-teaching, but I started with HTML when they taught it to me in my first year of junior high (sup 1997). It was just a stepping stone that lead me in the right direction. I would recommend an introductory class to anyone who is thinking of getting into web design. I just kept on with it because I thought it was cool to put something where everyone could see it. And by something, I mean lame-ass Final Fantasy sites.

Originally Posted by Qube

On another note, I've also been contemplating starting a web design business sometime, however I tend to prefer working on the guts of a site, not the design part. As much as I can do alright in that department, I just prefer to be playing with the database and internal code stuffs. We should talk.

On Friday, I said to my Javascript instructor: "I pretty much hate the grit of the programming for the web. I do HTML and CSS and I'm an art student; I'm somewhere in between programmer and artist. I just need to team up with a back-end coder and my web business will be whole."

I'm pretty serious on starting my own company. That FissionCore site design is for the "company" I co-run/own whatever for web hosting. I've just been bogged down with life shit (college and work) to get around to building on what we have. I had planned on including web design as a side thing to get money, because I'm the site designer and the other 2 are programmers. Our company runs itself because we break even on our server costs and we don't get new clients. Nothing ever happens lol. I'm itching to make some money through web design. My email is MSN is needforspeed_89@hotmail.com if you wanna chat sometime

How ya doing, buddy?

Deific Arts

I write stories, draw characters for them, then present them on my site. Except for The Real Bible site, that's just me being a jackass. My older sites used a lot of php/html/css/dhtml, but I've been loving the fuck out of Flash and Actionscript so I keep redoing things.

Anybody here ever hear of lynda.com? They got a shit load of online video tutorials. I find the video tutorials more helpful than my classes most of the time because I can focus on concepts that I actually want to learn and not what's being force down my throat. (like all the ridiculous queries msSQL can do)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Render

You and I could get along well. I HATE doing the content, but love doing the initial site design. :P

What exactly are you learning in your web design classes? I've always been curious since a girl from my class dropped out of Networking to enroll for a web class.

If it's HTML and CSS, then no thanks. I wouldn't mind some PHP and Photoshop classes since I'm average at best. PHP, I don't even know. SQL and Javascript I'm learning in my Programming classes this semester and next. I like doing the HTML, CSS, design and Photoshop portions the best. I would like to start a web design business sometime, but I need a back-end coding partner to make my sites dynamic. I can't do it. :P

Well, we've covered HTML, XHTML, CSS, Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, Web Design, FrontPage and Dreamweaver so far.

I'm currently learning Macromedia Director MX 2004 and CGI. We'll be getting into ASP, Cold Fusion and access soon.

I don't know SQL. I do know JavaScript and I'm trying to learn PHP on my own. I don't know why not a lot of people seem to like JavaScript. I happen to find it very useful. I guess it might be due to CSS having many alternatives.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by MeTaL_oRgY

also, if you ever get a web-design business up and running and need some help, count me in. I'm pretty good at CSS, XHTML and the graphics, and can be of some help at javascript and PHP.

Voy a meter mi cuchara, paisano. I could use some help to finish my blog's structure and some cleaning on my CSS files, can you PM me your MSN or AIM address?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Chances are almost everyone here will pwn me at web design, but my only excuses are I'm a student and I'm learning the graphics side more rather then things like coding entire databases,(not to mention spending over half the time writing how I build things as evidence rather then actually building them... ) I appreciate handcoding sites is important, but coding every last bit by hand these days is just madness imo.

clickage

If the intro pisses you off there's a skip button in the bottom right corner. The design's getting another rehash for obvious reasons hence the lack of updates, but it would be nice to know how clueless I am compared to the GFFers I guess ^^;

*waits for various people to say Flash = fail*

Jam it back in, in the dark.