I am just wondering how many of you Letterheads out there are designing and building your own web sites?
I have all the stuff to do it with, I just can't seem to pull it all together. I just got a domain name, I have Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX software......just can't seem to put together enough time and energy to put a site together.
Do most of you guys hire it out or design and build your own sites? What can I expect to spend?
Have you found any good tutorials to follow, books? Which software works out the best for you?
I have looked into templates a bit, but those need to be re-worked so much, I might as well do one from scratch. I am looking to do a pretty simple portfolio type of site, and then build on it from there.
Any advice would be helpful!
Thanks
Posted by Jon Jantz (Member # 6137) on :
I do my own, but when I'm rich, I'm going to hire Joe Diaz to build all mine...
Posted by Checkers (Member # 63) on :
Hiya Dale, There's no limit to how much you can spend on a web site. It all really depends on how fancy you want to get, how much content there is and how much work would be required to make your current content compatible with the web.
I've designed my own and spent way too much time on it. But, I was learning as I was going along and trying a lot of different things. And no, it's still not done yet.
I put a basic design together in Corel then export what I need into web ready graphics and assemble them using a basic HTML composer/editor that comes with most of the Mozilla browser suites. I'm sure it's not the most efficient way and I'm not using current technology, but it works for me and the site gets picked up by most search engines.
Havin' fun,
Checkers
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
I build quite a few for other people, but I can't seem to find the time or energy to do one for myself.
I'm doing just about everything in Flash8 which did take a little learning curve, but it is vector based so it was a much easier transition.
I have bought a few templates and disected them to figure out how they built them-- but some of them are a real pain to modify.
Posted by Ben Diaz (Member # 7319) on :
Joe and I have been working together to build sites. He uses Flash, Dreamweaver, Corel, Fireworks, Frontpage and just got Expression. I mostly just use Frontpage and Fireworks but am in the process of learning Expression. There is quite a learning curve to these programs. It's not that it is exactly all that difficult to build a site. It is just hard sometimes to get it exactly the way you want it to look and work. Sometimes things that seem like they are easy concepts are hard things to get programed into the code correctly. If you plan on doing sites for customers, my advice would be to keep at it if you run into something that is not working out like you had planned. I've learned alot of things just because I wasn't willing to budge on how I wanted something to look or work. If you are just doing one for yourself, I would suggest keeping the design simple or getting someone else to do it. It may not be worth the time and headache to learn how to use these programs if you only plan to do one website and change it every couple of years.
Posted by mike meyer (Member # 542) on :
Hey Ben
We need a site for the Mazeppa Veterans Honor Guard here in Mazeppa, email me for more info!
Posted by Paul Bierce (Member # 5412) on :
I built my own using Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Thankfully I've made a few sites professionally so the construction was pretty straightforward. To be honest, writing the content was the hardest part.
Posted by Lee Kembel (Member # 7577) on :
Consider doing the layout and graphics yourself in photoshop and taking that to a designer. Theres too many browsers out there, and new versions coming out too often to make a tag soup franken-site in dreamweaver that might or might not work tomorrow and on every platform.
It's the same as customers making their own signs. You can tell. It gets the job done but those that know just shake their head.
Whatever you do, I'd strongly suggest no table based layouts and authoring to XHTML 1.0/transitional and making sure it validates:
I've used FrontPage since I first went online 10 years ago. It has worked well for me and is easy to learn. Just make sure your host can use "FrontPage extensions". Also some browsers used to have some difficulties with frontpage sites, but I don't think it's an issue any more. Typical Microsoft ego is present in FrontPage.
Posted by Dan Antonelli (Member # 86) on :
I use Swish. And it has tutorials with it. As I'm sure Flash etc. does as well. Any program is going to have a learning curve Dale. It depends on whether you are a control freak, (like me,) and want to do EVERYTHING yourself. It depends on whether you want to take the time to learn it. It depends on whether learning it is worth it to you or not really. Are you going to do more websites than your own? Are you interested in it becoming another facet of your business? If you are perhaps it would be worth it. But it means stopping the other projects you have and really concentrating on it. (At least that is what it meant for me, as if I dropped it for a day it was too new and I'd have to repeat what I had already learned.) Do you have time for that? I took HTML courses back in the early 90's. Then started on Flash. Then I found Swish through Doug Downey and it seemed to have the elements of Flash built in with a click of the button that Flash took much longer to achieve. But that was the early 90's and I'm sure that has changed considerably since then. You are making movies in Swish. SO you have to get used to the concept of timelines and once you get that under your belt it becomes much more understandable. What it boils down to is time. How much you have, and what you want to do with it. I know those were the questions you were asking but you are the only one who can answer those questions. Either farm it out or otherwise, turn off the phone, leave your other projects behind, and jump the curve. Just one last thing, I did my web and I have about 6 changes that I want to make on it. But I don't have the time right now to get back at it and do them. Because again I am going to have to stop everything else to do it. And it is an important element of web to change it often for surfers to continue to come back to your site. So......maybe that helps you.
Sorry if I was talking in circles.
Posted by Dan Sawatzky (Member # 88) on :
I do the design of our website using Photoshop. This way it looks exactly how I wish it to appear. Then I hand it to my web guy (Phoenix, my son-in-law) and he puts the code to it to make it function as a web page.
In this fashion my style is all over it, but I don't have to learn the technical stuff.
Win, win.
-grampa dan
Posted by Brent Logan (Member # 6587) on :
That's the way to do it Dan. I made one myself a couple of years ago and it was just too time consuming. I heard of something called Sitegrinder that will take your Photoshop pages and code them for you.
Posted by Ben Diaz (Member # 7319) on :
The negative to designing a site in photoshop and then having someone else make it is that it may not go together just like you want it. It can be like an "artist" customer coming to you with a sign they have designed and then you have to figure out how to produce it. Dan's site works because it has that solid blue background and is easily divided up into parts that can be managed by the html editor. Keeping things in a straight line like that and using a solid background makes it much easier to produce. Remember not to use large images for backgrounds because they will either load slowly or in choppy sections. Leaving out animations will help also if you are going to try to make one for yourself for the first time. Also if you want a specific color that you can't get through your html editor make a 1 pixel x 1 pixel image of that color and use it repeating as your background or cell image, to keep file sizes down.
[ May 30, 2007, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: Ben Diaz ]
Posted by Ben Diaz (Member # 7319) on :
Oops accidently posted twice and can't figure out how to delete.
[ May 30, 2007, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Ben Diaz ]
