WordPress – Website Design Without the Tutorial

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Have you ever wanted a website but you just could not make heads or tails out of that web design tutorial that you were reading. The web design that you can really use without the need of tutorials, or expensive large hosting, or huge bills for the theme designer, is probably WordPress.

Even if you’ve never written a line of code in your life, even if you don’t know a single thing about online or webwork you can still get online and start making a passive income from your website in a very short time.

WordPress blog software can be literally anything at all that you want it to be. It can be very complex and very intricately accomplished, or it can be as simple and uncomplicated as you want it to be. WordPress is built to be what you want it to be. Simply great CMS or blog software, uncomplicated, easy to use and still looking fantastic. If you like to code, WordPress gives you every opportunity to replace, rebuild and recycle, but if you don’t know a website from a wallaby, then you are in luck because it will give you a beautiful site with out knowing a single line of code.

Your WordPress is easy to setup, its easy to use, it has a low learning curve and it’s simply outstanding as a way to make money. To get started in WordPress all you really need is a simple WordPress tutorial, you don’t need a website design tutorial at all. WordPress negates the need for a great many things, when you’re new to WordPress you simply install in a five minute time span and find a free theme that you like, or one of the many hundreds of no-charge professional or business themes that exist online today.

Your WordPress installation will take nominal time and the installation of your theme that will make the WordPress installation your own is literally effortless. Select the theme that you would like, click the installation button and in most cases you can install the theme that you want with the flick of a mouse button.

Your small business website was never easier to create and learning to use it is easier still. The last thing you’ll need is a web design tutorial when you start to work with WordPress. With a little common sense, and a little time, you can craft professional looking sites with WordPress, built it out with your own content and be selling affiliate products by the end of the week.

WordPress is designed for the more innovative user, the creative users, and the new users to be able to use equally well and to offer them a website venue that can be used as a blog, a Content management system, or both. Plugins will extend the functionality of the website, and give you the many different kinds of functions that you might need. No web design tutorials necessary. WordPress is an out of the box answer to your website needs.

Ideas for Web Design

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Whenever a web designer gets a web design project, he or she will require to take a step back and go through the research process in order to complete the job. The research process is a tedious process, it determines how well, and successful will the result of your web design. Ideas for web design will share with you how to go through that research process smoothly and obtain results.

One fine day, you received a call from some client and he requests you to design a website for his company. Over the phone, he briefly tells you what his company is about and asks about the prices, you then fixed an appointment with him for discussion. You will probably get excited about it and starts to get more details of the company by checking them on Google, and thinks about some prelim ideas for the website. At this stage, your research process has already started.

RETREIVING THE DETAILS:

After meeting up with the client, you get a lot of details that will assist you in your design process.
This details applies even when you are designing a personal website.

1. Nature of the Company

2. Client Preferences (Example websites?)

3. Target Audiences (kids? Young adults? Everyone in the world?)

4. Platform (Flash? Html? Php? Asp? )

By organizing these details, you get a bigger picture of:

1. What are you going to design?

2. What style of design are you approaching?

3. Whom you should design for?

4. How will your design work?

5. How will your design please both the audiences and the client in order to be successful?

DETERMINING THE STYLE:

With the information you have on hand, its time to determine the style. For a start, you should base on the client’s description of his company, his nature of the company to give a rough gauge on the design style. Examples below:

Example 1:

Web Hosting business >> High tech web design, sleek and professional design

Example 2:

Dolls and Toys business >> Kiddy, Girly, Colorful, Fun design

COLOR THEMES:

Having a good and suitable color theme on your web design will give users a pleasing experience while surfing through the web site you designed. One of the important techniques is to get a color chart from your local art store or use some color chooser tools to aid in your color selection. Your color theme will affect the mood and feel you want to create.
Colors also have their own meanings. For example, white is clean, blue is cool and corporate, having a white and blue color theme gives you a clean and corporate web design. Orange and yellow are warm and friendly colors, Grey is cool, combining a Orange-Grey theme will give you a friendly and fun mood. Dark colors are also popular among many, because they easily matched other bright colors. A common match is using a black background and light colored text as a combination.

There are thousands and one meaning to choose your color theme. Whether your color theme turns out successful depends heavily on the first step “Determining the style” of your website.

PHOTOS & GRAPHICS:

After getting the colors done, its time to think about the graphics and images. As a graphic says a thousand words, it is good to think about how you want to approach this portion. Here are some recommendations you can try:

1. Stock photos – Some are free, some requires you to pay a certain amount before providing you with high resolutions image. If your client has the money and there are suitable photos he would like to use, this is the way to go. Searching in Google for “stock photos” will give you plenty of results on this.

2. Take your own photos – When budget is involve, usually the project will require you to take a relevant photos and use them as supporting images on the website. Having a mid-range camera should do the trick as images for website are all on low resolution. Seldom there is a chance for you to use an image more than 640 x 480 pixels.

3. Creating Graphics Images – A web design will always need custom-made graphics images. For example, icons for a Shoe section, button for submitting information. You will need some skills in creating the graphics of your needs, or you will feel stuck while designing. Consider looking for tutorials on creating certain effects, like rounded corners, Mac alike buttons, pattern backgrounds and more. Learn about vector graphics tool like Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Fireworks. They can help you to create graphics, mockups and layout fast and efficiently. This will greatly aid in your next web design project.

INSPIRATION AND REFERENCES:

If you already have some inspiration on how to design the layout, great, but if you do not, consider looking at related websites for some references on how they are being done. A search in Google also reveals some websites of the same genre. You can also check out ready-made templatesas well. I am not teaching you to copy exactly, but as a new learner, you should take reference and see how they are being designed.

Why bother looking at them?

Reference sites will give you ideas on usability, color theme, ideas on relevant images, navigation, features and many more guides to work on your web design project. Always consider them as useful references to help you whenever you need inspiration and ideas for your web design. It is all about looking more, reading more and getting your eyes and brain more exposed to the web design styles. http://www.sitecritic.net has alot of website reviews by different web designers all over the world and is worth taking a look.

Final Say

I hope this article has been helpful to give you some ideas for your next web design project. In this web design industry, it is a never ending journey of learning. By reading more and seeing how others create, you will be more aware the next time you design your client’s or your own web site.

WYSIWYG Web Design Software – Which One is Best?

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There are a number of applications out there that allow you to design websites using WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors. We’re going to look at the best web design software that falls into this category. We’ll also look at the benefits of using such software to help you decide whether or not it’s right for you.

The principle behind WYSIWYG editors is that whatever you see on the page is what you’ll get when your website is published. Basically it gives you an interface where you can build your website exactly how you want it to look when people visit it online.

The most popular web design software packages are Dreamweaver, FrontPage and XSitePro. Adobe Dreamweaver is the professional choice due to its massive range of features and ability to create dynamic websites. The downside being it’s difficult to pick up and use ‘out of the box’ and requires a lot of hours to learn just the basics, especially if you’re new to web design. It’s also expensive to buy.

Microsoft’s FrontPage has a lot of features but often adds needless code to the pages it creates. This can increase page loading times, especially for those who still access the internet using a dial-up connection. It’s not as user-friendly as Dreamweaver and pushes you in the direction of using Microsoft server technologies to build dynamic sites which won’t suit everyone’s needs. On the plus side, FrontPage costs less than Dreamweaver and is slightly easier to learn.

The third and final WYSIWYG web design software we’re going to look at is XSitePro from Intellimon Ltd. This is a relatively new application that has been developed with the novice or internet marketer in mind.

Because the majority of features within Dreamweaver and FrontPage won’t be used by most users, XSitePro has done away with them and left only the tools that novice-to-intermediate web designers need. It’s resulted in an easy-to-use application that can be picked up and used by just about anybody.

The downside to XSitePro is that it’s more difficult to create dynamic sites and has done away with the look and feel of traditional WYSIWYG website software. So if you’re used to working with Dreamweaver or FrontPage then you might find XSitePro hard to get used to.

When it comes to web design software, a WYSIWYG editor is really the only way to go. It makes production time far quicker, but you need to start with the right software.

If you’re a professional web designer and you want to create cutting-edge websites using the latest technologies then without a doubt you need to use Adobe Dreamweaver. It’s amazingly powerful and automates a lot of the common tasks associated with web design.

If you’re not after something quite as feature-packed as Dreamweaver and you’re a fan of Microsoft technologies and you’d like to use them on the web, then FrontPage might be for you. Just don’t go creating large pages as they could take an age to load!

If you’re new to web design or you’d like to get something that doesn’t have the learning time of Dreamweaver or FrontPage then XSitePro is for you. It’s quick to learn, easy to use and can produce truly beautiful sites very quickly. And like Dreamweaver, it automates a lot of the common tasks associated with web design.

Picking the right WYSIWYG web design software is essential to make sure you find web design fun and interesting and not a chore. You should choose based on your skill level and exactly what you want to achieve. That will give you the results you want and will make building websites something you can enjoy for years to come.