Help with website design

[Tubby_Ninja]

Alright website and Photoshop masters! I need some help with this silly little site that I'm making. I've been messing with it for a while, and the problem is, I'm good with content and writing but terrible with design and creativity.

What I'd like is a logo for the site and a general template. Its for this running group that I'm part of, called the Tea Bag Posse. Yes, I know its silly and juvenille, but so am I. If you guys could come up with a cool logo and some site design ideas, I'd be forever appreciative. The only thing is, I need to be able to update the site using Frontpage, so it would have to conform to that. You can see the crap I have up at:

https://www.teabagposse.com

All comments and ideas appreciated!

[Will Wood]

Kill frontpage and use dreamweaver. Frontpage is evil.

[Kevmaster]

Originally posted by Will Wood
Kill frontpage and use dreamweaver. Frontpage is evil.

WORD!

[digitard]

Kill Dreamweaver and use Notepad

**flexes his Notepad editing muscles**



Dave

[shartley]

[digitard]

Yeah,
Thats a good point ... it doesn't matter what you use, or how "flashy" ya make it... its how well it works, and how well it blends.

My site: http://www.plur2k.com

Other than the flash intro (couldn't resist) the site is pretty much all pure HTML with a few Java based image rotation scripts here and there.

Nothing too fancy honestly ... just some decent use of tables and stuff and it came out quite nicely.

hehe, but wait til you see my new site ... it'll make ya go CRAZY!



Sincerely,
Dave

[Tubby_Ninja]

Thats exactly my problem. I can't make a good logo graphic. I wouldn't mind just having text links and stuff like that, but I need a couple of graphics, and an idea or two for a layout. It always amazes me what some of you guys do in five minutes.

[digitard]

What I always suggest about "learning" the ropes of Web Design is this ...

Find some pages that you like ... click VIEW on your browser and then SOURCE ...

Copy everything thats on that page ....

Go into DREAMWEAVER and click the VIEW option and choose "CODE + PAGE" (or whatever it says so you can see both) and paste that source code into dreamweaver ... the page should appear below ...

Then you can toy around with it (change things, variables in the tables, etc) and see HOW they do those things and learn ... dont go stealin' them for your page, but instead learn why/how each thing works... then you can build your knowledge.

Other than the initial design of my page (ease of use) nothing else was done using Dreamweaver ... all things that I've added since then are just NOTEPAD edits of things and implimentations.

As for Graphics, dont worry ... I suck at Photoshop too, I had a friend do my graphics cause I'm retarded..lol

Sincerely,
Dave K

[synreal]

purple and gold, you want a purple and gold site baby

[Tubby_Ninja]

Maybe I just need to pay someone to do a graphic, and then do the rest the way you recommend Digitard.

[synreal]

you could go that route, or you can do what all decent web designers have done. make a few not so pretty sites on your road to improvement

if you look around, there are a good number of sites that rely very little on graphics to make there point, but are still visually stunning. a good layout and color scheme are the best place to start.

look at photos and paintings that you like and are visually appealing. i'd say that's an easy way to see what color combos seem to work together.

limit the number of fonts that you use and use sans-serif fonts (verdana, arial, ...) for your body text, its just easier on the eyes.

[Tubby_Ninja]

Syn,

How about for the header though? You need to have some sort of graphic, wouldn't you say?

[synreal]

yes, for a header element, but that is something that you can try a couple dozen versions of on your own.

the best way to figure out what works and what doesn't is to try a bunch of treatments and refine the ones that don't hurt your eyes

and i'm still sticking with purple and gold (only because i just finished a comp for a client in that scheme and the colors play rather nicely together though)

[Tron]

I say if you want to learn good web design look at everything but the web. Look at magazines, tv, billboards, and see how everything else is done. If you get your ideas from the web you can bet it has been done 1,000x before.

-Tron

[synreal]

yes and no, you can take inspiration from other sites and still make a completely new and unique design of your own.

i do agree that using as many differnt influences as possible is a good thing but a) keep it simple when you are first starting out b) most print ads are simply rehashes of older print ads and c) in the end it still has to look and work like a website for your viewers to be interested and use it. avant garde is great, but make sure its usable also.

designs that you see variations of all over are oft times repeated because they are good solid layouts, and are worth of mimicing.