Design

[Smarky]

When I come to creating a design I always seem to draw a blank. I play around in dreamweaver with some tables and see what I can come up with. How do you go about creating a site, do you create layouts in any other apps ?. I don't like a lot of stuff i come up with but I don't know weahter it is just me or that fact that they are bad.Designs usally look bad at the start maybe I should just stick with and and keep changing it untill i get what I get. If I don't like the way it is looking continue making it and improve it instead of keep dumping stuff and starting again what you lot think ? Any tips on how to improve? Should I become better at my graphic skills ? I have people see my work and they like it but I don't know weather they are just saying that or not just to make me happy. My current URL is http://www.markshiel.com this was made for the purpuse of learning flash It was my first flash site , could of been better but iI was busy with other things didn't have much time to work on it.

Thanks

[TWTCommish]

Nice site. I'm not Flash expert, but I enjoyed your presentation anywho.

I personally just imagine it in my head and try to put it onto the page. Some people, however, like to draw out a layout in a graphics program and chop up the according sections of it.

Some people even draw it on a piece of paper first. There is no wrong way - do whatever you find most comfortable and/or effective.

[Smarky]

I tried doing it in freehand but i found flash easier to work with for just drawing the graphics but I don't have a methord yet that i use yet because that didn't really get me that far.

[aspen]

IMO Graphics make the site. If you have professional looking graphics your site will look professional, if you don't, it won't.

When designing a site I will often just think about how I want it to look, menu on top, or on left. What colors? What font? Sometimes I'll sketch out my designs very loosely. But then I just go into photoshop and make the graphics first. Often while making said graphics I'll change things around as I see the site start coming together. But then I make the layout around the graphics and fill in the content.

Chris