I know we've discussed this 'web software' stuff before, but I am seriously thinking of signing up for a winter course at the local community college... for Dreamweaver web site creation. They have two classes... the beginner course followed by the more advanced (I guess) course.
So... with virtually little knowledge of web site creation - but very good illustrator and Photoshop skills... how quickly could I be on my way to understanding and creating decent web sites?
How critical is it to learn HTML and how does Flash animation fit into the scheme of web design?
Any good examples you can provide me links to? Somebody here posted a link to a signguys Flash based site where he painted flames on motorcycles and cars and pinstriping... I remember it had some awesome Flash animation as the home page loaded.... flames, effects etc.
I'd like input from those that feel pretty adept at this: Joe Diaz and Dan Antonelli come to mind...but all others - please kick in.
Thanks for your thoughts!
[ November 04, 2009, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: Todd Gill ]
Posted by Dan Antonelli (Member # 86) on :
Hey Todd-
HTML knowledge is definitely helpful to full grasping DW.
As for how learn will it take before you could create decent web sites - thats hard to say. When I first learned about 10 years ago it was much easier I think to make 'decent' sites because back then no one really knew what they were doing!
I'd say after about a dozen or so sites under your belt maybe you might be 'decent'. The real challenge is understanding how to translate that nice PS comp into an actual site that would work within the limitations of online usage.
Kudos for you for furthering your education.
Outside of design is the whole marketing aspect of sites, search engine implications, etc. That takes time to learn also.
Personally, the way I learned was doing the tutorials DW had - and that's really what I learned from. Generally DW and FW work hand in hand, so a good knowledge of FW is also helpful.
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Thank you Dan! I'm absorbing this info...
Do you think that video tutorials are helpful? I stumbled across a site called Lynda.com .... any value there or are you referring to printed tutorials? Thanks again!
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
I haven't used DreamWeaver for years, so I'm not sure what it's like now. I use a freeware program called Notepad++ to do my coding.
Web design can be divided into different areas of responsibility:
Design Web sites are often mocked up as layered Photoshop or Illustrator files. Some designers don't do any coding. They are responsible for just the design. They prepare the files and hand them off to someone else for the "PSD to HTML" work.
Front-end Coding and Styling The coder isolates the graphics from the Photoshop layers, samples the colors, and takes measurements. Then the basic structure is created with HTML, and the styling (colors, sizes, placement, alignment, etc.) is done with CSS. It helps to know your way around Javascript as well. Making the pages look the same in every browser is a challenge.
Back-end Dynamic pages are generally connected to a database and languages like PHP are used to help the server makes sense of the user input. This area has a pretty steep learning curve because there are so many things to know.
Flash I'm not very familiar with Flash, so I'm not sure what the procedure is for making a Flash-based site.
Lynda.com has some good tutorials. To begin with I would concentrate on HTML and CSS. The tutorials on Lynda will help you learn the language. One weakness of some of the tutorials I've seen on lynda.com is information is neat and tidy, with no problems shown. Some of the tutorials I've seen elsewhere online are much better at showing someone solving real problems as they present themselves, such as, what do you do if a transparent PNG image shows up opaque in Internet Explorer?
I would recommend doing a google search for "PSD HTML tutorials".
Thank you Russ! Checking the links out now.
Posted by Mr Curtis Dalton (Member # 7547) on :
Web design is something I need a lot more time with. The class I did (12 Years ago) was all HTML. Each week I would contemplate smashing the keyboard and buying the college a new one. I "designed" a website for an Aqua Fitness club in St. John's just to finish the class. It was very simple looking and I hated it, absolutely no design at all. A few years later I picked up a copy of Dreamweaver. I love it. It works like a design program and can do a decent job when you need it. However, I really really regret tossing my HTML knowledge out the window. With the use of HTML you can do a lot with Dreamweaver. Flash is also a great program, but takes serious skill to use properly. I am also planning to do a Flash class in the upcoming years, I'll never design a site as good as Antonelli, but I want to be better then I am right now. So Todd, if you learn HTML, keep it in your head, practice all the time. It's great stuff to know.
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
DW has always given me a headache. I just have a tough time getting my head around it. Old age setting in and the synapses just don't fire like they used to. Plus I'm pretty lazy.
I've been using SiteGrinder. Its a Photoshop plug-in. If you know Photoshop, creating a website in it using Sitegrinder is a breeze. You can download a free demo here. They offer free training videos online and support is the best I've ever seen from any company. Be sure to check out the examples page of sites created by Sitegrinder users.
[ November 04, 2009, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: Glenn Taylor ]
Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Thanks guys, and thanks Glenn... I'll probably go for DreamWeaver because the local college has a few courses in it.... and I think it would work well with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (not that other options wouldn't as well)... but I think the interface would be familiar - I hope.
So, just curious if anyone has more thoughts on the learning curve of DreamWeaver and perhaps some websites which were created using it.
Thanks.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
Todd, I did a couple of tutorials on DW2 or 3 I think, that came with a design magazine in the 90s, and that whetted my inexperienced appetite, but I didn't follow it up.
Later I got a book on the basics of DW, and another on DW & P'shop integration, (and others on effective website design etc) and they helped. I didn't go through manyr of them from start to end though, just used them to look up basics that I'd forgotten, or bits I wanted.
The DW Bible is very comprehensive, and I bought a 2-cd training set which I watched from time to time. I probably only use 4% of what the program is capable of, but I do like it.
You can generate Flash buttons & navigation bars from within DW, but I tend to like to make them in ImageReady & work with P'shop also.
One day I'd like to find the time to get better at it- I don't mind the program, but it's easy to get rusty if you don't persevere with it.
There are many other options available- I guess it all depends on how much time you'd like to spend, how impatient you are, and how quickly you can pick up certain routines & principles.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
P.S. I think it was Mike Lavallee's True Fire website you were referring to at the start of this thread.
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
Todd- Flash is so much closer to Illustrator and even Photoshop to an extent... it is a vector based program and also can do some photoshop looking effects.
I've built a few sites with DW- it's a great program, but it is absolutely nothing like Illustrator (or any vector based program). I hated every minute that I had to suffer thru coding and CSS and the end result never looked as good as what I started with. I very rarely even open DW for anything anymore!
I do EVERYTHING in Flash- there is a learning curve, but it makes sense to a vector artist... there are plenty of people out there that don't like Flash or know how to use it properly, but I haven't found ANYTHING any better from a designer point of view- plus, if you are a nerdy coder, you have that option to develop in Flash or Flex...
Another really cool feature is the ability to design something in Illustrator and copy and paste the vectors directly into Flash, intact and editable vectors- same with photoshop and layers, all intact and editable.
I have learned to build Flash/php forms, XML driven content, Content Management Systems, Back Button/SEO features, video, interactivity, multimedia, animation, you name it... all with Flash!
There are alot of other aspects to web design that I haven't had time to get into- SEO optimization and such, but it can all be done around Flash site. The only negative that I can think of is the fact that the iPhone doesn't support flash sites, yet...
Posted by Michael Clanton (Member # 2419) on :
Here's a sample of a site that we did a few weeks ago. It is still being tweaked and there are some other bells and whistles that some other web guys are adding to it like SEO optimization and some of that other technical web stuff that we don't do.
This was all built from scratch in Flash except for a couple of prebuilt components in use. The logo was originally designed in Illustrator and the vectors imported. The site is fully scalable and the only HTML is the placeholder for the Flash movie... all of the content text will be fully searchable in search engines, and the browser Back button will be operational...
Here's another example of a quickie site- 100% vector graphics built in Illustrator and imported into Flash... This was built and published in just a couple of hours.
(try to ignore the cartoon animal... that was their existing logo) SpeedySkunkRun.com Posted by Todd Gill (Member # 2569) on :
Thanks so much for spending the time to reply guys!! Great info... and some pretty neat work Mike....How'd you import the video of the Politician? that's pretty sweet....
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
Todd,
When I started using DreamWeaver, I found it to be easy as pie...
But keep in mind, before that switch, I was writing HTML 100% manually with Notepad.exe in Windows - yeah, the no-frills text editor.
So, having a solid base of HTML knowledge in place already, any feature that DW didn't get *just right*, I could pop into DW's code editor and fix it manually.
DW is more like a word processing or page layout program, not so much a design program like Photoshop or Illustrator. Think more along the lines of Word, PageMaker, etc.
The nice thing is that now Photoshop has some basic web functionality built in where you can design a layout, setup rollover buttons and such, then export working HTML right from Photoshop, then use DW to edit page content and clean up the HTML if needed.
Posted by Gary Boros (Member # 8487) on :
OK, this may be a little out there but I see this commercial on TV all the time and the business has been there for years so there must be something of value, though I have no personal experience with them. If you look up Video Professor, they provide software training videos,courses, etc., and I think they give a free course to try it. Evaluate this for yourself, it's just a thought!
Posted by Joseph Diaz (Member # 5913) on :
Like many have already said: It depends on your knowledge of the language... html, css, php... etc. I have found when it comes to web design, knowing the "code" is what you need to be shooting for, rather than knowing the software. The software is just a tool, and if you understand the code, any software is easy to learn, including Dreamweaver. This is why some people can and will still use notepad. It is a basic tool, but like a hammer, is reliable, and with a little more work, still gets the job done. So really its about figuring out what tool(software) has the right features to help you get the job done faster and more efficiently. I stopped using Dreamweaver a few years back because I found what I felt like was an alternative solution with better css managing tools and better ftp tools: ExpressionWeb. Now, I'm sure Dreamweaver, has stepped up its css tools in more recent versions, so I'm not trying to say one is better than the other, but I (and my brother) both feel comfortable with the "tool" we have picked.
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