Minimal Mint

[bopjo1]

Hi everybody,

I've recently had a couple breakthroughs in my graphic design abilities. I didn't go to art school or have any design training growing up, so the aspect of web design has been the biggest challenge for me.

Some principles that have given me a boost lately:


1) Study letterhead design for Mastheads, color schemes, layout, typography and even navigation!

2) Don't get hooked on learning CSS to the exclusion of all else. Knowing CSS is important, but it won't make me a better designer. It will only give me power over layout. It's important to spend equal time studying graphic design.

3) Color! Recognize great color schemes on the web or in print. If you see something on the web, grab the colors using a color utility, or copy the graphic to your hard drive and bring it into Photoshop/Illustrator to make a color pallette from it. Scan printed material and do the same.

4) Illustrator! Learn the basics of Illustrator and use it to design logos, text graphics, etc. That crisp, clean vectoring makes your designs look sharp.

Here's a link to a layout I played with today on a lazy sunday that is based on a letterhead:

<snip>

I scanned the letterhead to grab that nice mint green color. It is a very subtle green that provides excellent contast for white text.

[bopjo1]

No replies?!?

OK, here's another design concept taken from a different Letterhead and used as the Masthead, nav placement, typography, and color scheme for a web page:

<snip>

[logic_earth]

No replies because you haven't asked a question so therefore what are people suppose to reply with?

[AutisticCuckoo]

If you are looking for feedback on your designs, please post a review request in the Website Reviews forum. Make sure that you read the guidelines for that forum before posting.

[bopjo1]

The links are not for feedback, they are there to illustrate the concepts I presented.

Please return them to the thread.

[AutisticCuckoo]

Sorry, the forum guidelines do not allow us to link to our own sites, except in our signatures.

Here's an extract of the relevant part of the guidelines:

The SitePoint Forums has a strict, no-self-promotion policy. Linking to your own web pages or pages from sites which you are affiliated with (including affiliate links) will be deemed as self-promotion and could result in the loss of your membership. Under certain conditions, links to your site can be placed into your forum signature (see Member Signatures), or in designated areas of the forums (such as the Marketplace) only.

[bopjo1]

But they aren't even functioning sites! They are one page mock-ups created to serve as visual examples for this thread.

[AutisticCuckoo]

The guidelines don't say anything about it having to be a 'functioning site'. They say, 'Linking to your own web pages ... will be deemed as self-promotion'.

If you don't like the forum rules you can contact SitePoint (using the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page) and ask that they be changed.

But when you became a member of this forum, you promised to follow the rules. And the rules must apply to everyone.

[bopjo1]

I will definately contact SitePoint about this.

There is a clear distinction between web pages used for self-promotion and web pages used to illustrate visual concepts.

The difference is the intended purpose.

I would think the visual illustration of design concepts would be of great benefit to a community that has gathered to discuss "Web Page Design."

Plus, I just finished browsing the "graphics tutorials" section of this forum, and there were numerous examples of posters linking to web pages they built to aid with their tutorials. None of their links were deleted.

By being so strict with the interpretation of the guidelines, you discourage contributions. I had something unique to share with this community, but why bother if I can't show visually what I'm talking about? It's especially discouraging considering all the effort I put into it.