Best Web Design Issues

This 'best web design' section looks at matters from a DIY viewpoint. The usual advice is don't. Graphic design is a very skilled craft, and the experience that stamps an essential feel of "quality" on the page is well worth paying for. No amateur can hope to emulate a top professional, and it's false economy to try.But not all professionals are top-notch, and it's not unknown for a client to meet the senior partner but have the work done by the trainee just out of art college. The best designers are very good indeed, but the fees can make even big business flinch. What's the solution?

 

Some general points. Unless yours is a site advertising web or graphic design services (when you'll have your own in-house staff anyway) the graphics needed for an ecommerce site can be very simple. In fact, they should be simple. You don't require full page designs that take long minutes to download. Likewise be very chary of Flash animation, or splash pages at all. However stunning the effect, they're apt to confuse the search engines and delay the customer getting to the product. A logo occupying the top 15% of the page, plus links in the margin, is usually all that's needed.

Now the logo. Many companies will already have their own logo. The originating company can be contacted for the artwork, or existing sales literature scanned and the resulting image cleaned up. From the logo flows the general look of the site, and so the graphic design generally.

In contrast, a logo becomes necessary when the company:

• is newly established and has no logo.

• possesses something suitable only for letterhead.

• wishes to market under another name.

How much do logos cost? The figures may surprise you. But prices in the high hundreds to many thousand dollars reflect the time spent in conceiving and polishing up the final product, commonly through innumerable meetings between management and designers. On logos depend the image of the company: its status, style of business, market sector. And once decided upon, the logo is entrenched in the public consciousness by large sums spent on promotion.

But if you don't want to spend that sort of money? Get one mechanically designed for you over the Internet. Costs start at a few tens of dollars, and results are satisfactory for most purposes.

For the DIY designer, we list resources for Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw and Flash. Professional designers will have their own favorites, but it is worth noting that Paintshop Pro will create most webpage graphics except items needing text smaller than 14 point (use the other programs listed or Adobe's Fireworks).

Detailed resource listings for web design are to be found in the e-book.

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