This session is going to be slightly different to ones we’ve held in the past, in that there aren’t just one or two experts, but a whole raft of forum experts. I hope that it works as a bit of a free for all, with people helping each other.

Let’s start by introducing ourselves. I’m HAWK, Community Manager for SitePoint and ex-developer. I’m based in Auckland, NZ although I obviously work for an Australian company,

It’s a long commute… ;)

good for practicing your swimming though.

Haha, indeed. To be fair, Air New Zealand make the commute a nice one.

I’m a designer. My questions are mostly about best practices. I do mostly webmail designs that require simple code. I have art directed some site development but hand off the heavy coding to code warriors :-) My question is how to ease into site design myself, using grids, or web fonts, etc.

I’m Guido, Community Team Advisor, based in Rome, Italy

I’m the programmer in the corner.

Good question @Rob. Anyone care to take it on?

Matt, Junrior Web Programmer for world’s largest paintball creator/distributor

Hi, I’m Paul. I’m a Team Leader on the Sitepoint Forums based in Hampshire UK. My skills are mainly css/html and little else.

Sounds pretty cool @MattW – I’m a huge fan of paintball

@Hawk, (GI Sportz) if it rings a bell. They sponsor all the pro teams, etc.

I’m… a little confused by Rob’s question. It sounds like you already do design. What… exactly are you trying to get into?

Hi, redWheelbarrow here. New to webinars, but will put in my 2cents worth. I have avoided grids (non-flexible) in favor of fluid widths, but now I am pondering the best practices to include the array of mobile devices.

The actual coding. JQuery. HTML 5. Stuff not usable in webmail designs.

G’day and welcome @ralph.m. We’re currently talking about best practices.and how to ease into site design – using grids, or web fonts, etc. Any thoughts?

Nice – thanks for jumping in @redWheelbarrow

Hi and welcome to anyone that has just joined us. Feel free to introduce yourselves and throw any questions that you have into the ring. No worries if you’d rather just lurk. You’re also encouraged to answer anyone else’s questions – this is a free for all. ;)

Agreed w/Mobile concerns.. I am running into a problem. We are using a wordpress theme which is compatible for viewing on Mobile devices.. However our header logo img does NOT get resized and so it covers a huge chunk of the content when viewing on Mobile.

Maybe I can simplify my question. Start with using grids. Pros. Cons?

WYSIWYG editing is usually where i’d imagine most designers first transition… not necessarily the best way to learn (the major editors tend to use odd quirks to make things line up, not very streamlined, etc), but i’d imagine thats where a lot start off.

Greetings! I was recently promoted at work from graphic designer to webmaster, so I’m trying to learn as much as I can as fast as I can. I’m getting a pretty good handle on CSS so far, but using px instead of % and ems. Should I concentrate on getting used to using the fluid measurements instead of the more concrete ones?

Hi everyone. @Rob: it’s worth reading a good book or two about web design to make sure you have good foundations set in place. Beyond that, just start building pages! In reality, it’s quite simple (don’t tell anyone, though). It’s something that’s quite easy to do on the side, as a hobby at first, if you can’t afford to give up your day job. It’s usually pretty easy to find a friend or family member who needs a site.

@redWheelbarrow. “Mobile first” is generally considered the best approach these days if mobile is important to you. Rather than catering for millions of devices you should just add media queries to cater for widths at which your design doesn’t work any more.

Barney from Cuenca, Ecuador

g’day @Barney

Can you elaborate more about media queries?

g’day missy – thanks for having me

That’s the trick with fluid measurements – you generally cant test every platform to see where your code is going to break (or at least, you probably wont spend a couple thousand dollars on purchasing an pc,mac,ipad,iphone, android, etc,etc,etc….

@Rob. Grids can be more trouble than they are worth. I’d recommend learning how to build your layouts yourself, so that you understand the principles involved. We see a lot of problems with grids in the forums, where it would have been an easy job coding from scratch.

@Georgia that is definitely the kind of question that @PaulOB can answer…

@Georgia. As far as font-sizing goes then it is better to work in ems although you have to let go of control a little.

@PaulOB

Sorry. thanks, PaulOB!

For those of you that have just entered, we’re currently talking best practices

ralph.m & @Rob, by Grids, are you referring to the 960 grid sort of thing or something else entirely. Full-on newbie here.

yep, thanks :) didnt expect to get the answer so fast

@Georgia. It can be awkward when working with ems if you are used to using px but its worth the effort and of course makes the text more scalable.

@redWheelbarrow Media queries are a newish addition to CSS that let you target your styles to devices of a certain nature, such as those with a screen of a specific size. They are very handy. There’s a handy intro to them in the SitePoint Reference: http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/mediaqueries

Agree with using ems. Have used them successfully for years, with CSS and XHTML. My fluid sites “fit” even on the smallest Blackberry screen, but I am still concerned about usability. That’s why I would like to know more about mobile concerns.

We changed to using ems but a motion was put forward recently that we revert back to px as that’s what someone has seen the ‘big names in web’ doing?

@Mike, yes, things like the 960 grid system. There are lots ond lots of them appearing now. They do introduce a lot of complexity that’s of dubious value, IMHO.

I personally didn’t mind ems, it didn’t make my workflow longer… but I was the only member of the team to like them I think :(

@redWheelbarrow. Which specific concerns do you have with mobile?

Thanks, ralphM. Just caught up with your response, and will check out that link reference.

@Ralph.m: Thanks. I have done. Develop page design in Pshop or Fireworks. Transfer to Dreamweaver. Massage bad code. Publish. What I don’t know are the efficiencies of building a large site, when to use templates, flash vs. html 5, grids or no grids, making sites as scalable as possible. If there is a REALLY good book for this out there lemme know where!

using Amedia, is good for heavy traffic, it keeps server hits lower, but I find they are not important, like “Print” (for print friendly) – doesnt do much in savings .. just my opin….

If you’ve just joined us, feel free to jump in with any questions that you have – or to answer any that you see.

@ralph.m thanks for clarifying.

Hi everyone. What do people here think makes a site look up to date and modern? Website styles have changed over the years.

hey guys, I am wondering how it would be better to protect contact form from spam? have one ont he website which stays fixed through all the pages

less eye candy — more real info — works for me

@Jess.irwin. Designers love px because they like to control things exactly but on the web you have little control over what the user may be viewing on, with or what settings they have applied. You have to let go of control a little and let the user decide what size text they want and not force px on them. However, a lot of clients still don;t understand this.

@Anna, how about CAPTCHA?

Clean typography, no animated gifs spinning around, harmony of color

Hi Everyone I’m from Bogotá Colombia works as a webmaster for a local tv channel, use joomla cms, and want to know more about integrating cms and responsive design

What do you mean by “clean typography?’

@dorak You could spend a bit of time checking out designfestival.com for some ideas.

I don’t want to try to create a different CSS layout for every present and future brand and version of mobile devices. Are there emerging standards, as there were for desktop-notebook cross-browser standards?

@PaulOB we’re not doing responsive sites at the moment, what would you recommend we use ems for apart from font-size?

captcha doesnt look stylish, does it? :) i try to integrate the contact form in whole design so I need nicer solution…

@MauricioOchoa We’re recently run a series of Joomla articles on sitepoint.com – did you see those?

redWheel, the aim is to make it resolution independent.

@Rob: Site building is made a lot easier, I find, if you break it down into small tasks. Firstly, I recommend taking a look at what the site needs to do and what content it needs to present. Find a logical way to organize and present that material. This will give you your site structure, with a focus on making things easy for site visitors. It doesn’t matter so much what version of the various code languages you like, but remember that things like HTML5 and CSS3 are still in development, so need to be used with caution, if at all. But leave Flash alone. There’s no one book that covers everything, but there is a great range in the SitePoint bookstore. I recommend looking through those to start with.

@dorak, also check The Web Designer’s Idea Book. Lots of good analysis of what makes good design…

@dorak when I was in school 4-5 years ago so many of my fellow students weren’t thinking about their typography and how different fonts worked together. There are more fonts available than ever, but that just means that there can be many more design mis-steps, like using a display face as body copy…

@haWKyes

@redWheelbarrow. As I said above don’t think about devices so much. You need to concentrate on your own design and adapt that design so it goes from very small to very large. You don;t need to know what size the devices are as you use media queries to change your design at the point that it would break. All designs are different so be design specific and not device specific.

How is everyone going? Any questions that have been lost in the noise and haven’t been answered?

There aren’t good standard resolutions to work to with the number of devices increasing. If you optimise for major switch points like iphone, ipad in landscape and portrait as well as large screens you’re pretty well covered.

yep, about captcha and sty;lish design :)

@Anna, you could use a hidden field in the form. Normal users won’t fill it, because they don’t see it. But smart spam bots might understand the trick and not fill it in either

@Anna We had a great discussion about how to protect form in the forums recently. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?861648-Captcha-To-Use-Or-Not-To-Use&p=5144556&viewfull=1#post5144556 Definitely worth a read. The common path is to use CAPTCHA, but it’s truly horrible, so I don’t recommend it. There are better ways to protect a form without making life miserable for users. :-)

Does anyone have any other suggestions for protecting online forms from spam, other than CAPTCHA. Something that looks nicer?

@haWK yes I saw very useful and love to find out those good points for wordpress and joomla

thanks ralph!!

I’ve seen some sites use simple math problems to identify humans

@MauricioOchoa Great. Do you have specific questions regarding Joomla?

@Georgia I think that would rule me out…

i have no idea how this math works… seen them too

According to most CAPTCHAs, I’m not really a human.

I tend to use my own simplistic question-answer system. CAPTCHA’s been broken before.

A common alternative to CAPTCHA is a hidden field used as a “honey Pot”. If a bot fills it in, the form aborts. In the forum thread I linked to above, there was an even better suggestion of a hidden filed with a timer set on it, meaning that a bot that fills in the form quickly will be shut out.

@jess.irwin. You can use ems for widths but you will probvably need to set a min-max width in px to stop them expanding too much. Don’t use ems for margins because that is based on the parents font-size and therefore will be inconsistent between different elements. I prefer fluid/elastic sites where one column is fixed (either em or px) and the other column just soaks up the available space.

BTW to get into this chat, I had to use a fake email address, since a real one didn’t work.

@Ralph.m: Thanks. Will do. Do you have any best practices you use for maximum scalability? For different usage as well? I find that more and more I want to use say a magazine page design, transfer that to a tablet scale, then to mobile scale. Any way to make this go smoothly (ie: less work)?.

benefit of using something you made yourself being that spam bot programmers dont have the time to write against your site specifically, so they’ll just send the spambot elsewhere, where they can get in.

@dorak Yeah – this chat software is very very buggy. We are in the process of developing our own interface but until then, this is about the best I can find. :(

@HAWK yes, using a good framework with responsive design

@dorak Yes same for me -

@HAWK no problem

Is this the getting started with web design? is there audio? my first with the experts visit! (-:

Does anyone have any experience using CMS integration with responsive design?

@Tekamba no no audio

@paulOB thanks. I don’t think I

Hi @Tekamba Yes it is and no, there is no audio. It’s text based. :)

well, guess I’ll take off my headphones then

Hi all! I’ve been doing web design for a few years on the side for friends. I’d like to try to do it full time, but wonder A.) How practical is that? (especially since it’s just getting easier and easier for people to make their own sites) B.) Where to focus? I know HTML, CSS and the WordPress platform pretty well. I enjoy both designing and coding.

@paulOB thanks, I don’t think I’ll win over the rest of the team though

@Tekamba Hahaha, love it. Do you have any questions or are you happy lurking for a while?

Hawk, I have the same question. Will be developing a Drupal site.

Hi,problems getting on but finally glad 2 B here. What media query min/max px sizes should I be using to cover most mobiles as I have seen various sizes mentioned and a bit confused.

@Rob I’m not sure there’s a super easy way to do it. My practice is to build the page bit by bit and test it as I go. As others have said, sometimes it’s easiest to set “breakpoints” … that is, work out at what screen width you need to reorganize things and create a media rule for that.

@jess.irwin. No I have clients like that and insist that it must be px :(

probably be a lurker for a bit, but trust me, if I have an opinion… it will be known (-:

scottmac, where are you from? opportunities would be different in each country. But I think there’s a lot of opportunity for people at all levels to work on the web.

LA area

If it wernt practical, there wouldnt be professional web designers.

@paulOB Once we start going into responsive sites I think it will be easier to convert. At the moment, time doesn’t allow for fluid sites.

@Scottmac It is definitely practical, provided you are in a position where you’re not solely reliant on the income to start with. And then my recommendation would be to pick up a language like PHP – something to give you more experience creating back ends. WordPress is a great place to start if you’re just doing low end sites, but that’s not where the money is. Having said that, I built sites using nothing more than HTML & CSS for a few years and still managed to eat.

I have done somework with, ThemeId’s “Responsive (WP) .. Fonts scale pretty good when using ems, but not so well with px from monitor to ipad, and smaller

@scottmac, I think there will always be clients, even if making a website becomes easier lots of people won’t want to/be able to make a site themselves.

scottmac, you should keep learning other areas of web development so you have a broad understanding of major technologies. It’s a good idea to be an expert in one area though.

@Johnny_R Sorry about the difficulties getting in. Perhaps I should explain those in the future in case others get caught.

would also be nice to have something posted to FB or front of site with a direct link? I had to search awhile to find my way here

I have a mobile-related question. I’ve read that you can embed a snippet of java script in the code of your page to determine what browser the user is, well, using, so that they can be automatically directed to a mobile-specific page. Does Sitepoint have any articles/instructions on how to do that?

@scottmac It’s amazing how quickly you can find people wanting a website once you start. Even though it’s easier these days to get a site (often for free) those sites are not well suited to the needs of a real business. It’s like the difference between a suit off the shelf and a tailored suit. The latter fits much better, just like a tailored website fits a business much better. And that’s important for online success. So don’t give up!

ok , I am very brave to talk with you, i am totally newbie in design , more programing/technical oriented, so now i am playing around with one wordpress theme. Every vector /icon is from free vector repositories on internet I just use it like puzzle
so I need your comments: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=6z64js&s=6

@scottmac. Going full time could be difficult unless you have built up a client base to keep you busy so I would try and build things up first until you have enough to keep you busy.

Does anyone build websites within attendee registration tools, like StarCite or Cvent and have difficulty identifying the css needed to control the different pages in the flow of registration. What best practices do you apply?

Georgia, browser-detection is old-school.

@dpavlovic Welcome and good on you for asking. If you want in depth reviews I would suggest posting in our Reviews Forum, which you’ll find herehttp://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?12-Website-Design-amp-Content-Reviews-amp-Critiques

Thanks everyone! So, with my present skills of HTML/CSS/Wordpress, what are some good places to start finding work?

@scottmac I know of people that have had some success going to small businesses in their area and asking if they have considered a web presence.

@Ralph.m: Again thanks. Have you ever used any wysiwyg sw or plug-ins that could get me close to my different scale requirements with little or no code cleanup?

hehe. Is there a holy grail?

@redWheelbarrow Can you clarify what you mean? What methods should I be using instead?

re: @scottmac’s question of where to start: what about building a WordPress theme to sell? Is that viable, as I have only curiosity and no experience in that area?

How is everyone going? Any unanswered questions (or questions that haven’t been asked yet)?

dpav, that’s probably a lot better than my first site :) Keep going. If you want to learn more about design start following designers on dribbble / twitter and learn how they work.

@markbrown4 thanx for comment and advice

You can’t detect every possible browser and browser version and platform. Use Cross-browser standards. Then your site renders in the same proportions regardless of the browser. This has worked for me for years: code to XHTML standards (or HTML5), CSS for layout as well as presentation (no tables), and ems or percentages instead of pixels.

@Georgia. Unless you have the resources to maintain a separate mobile site then I wouldn’t consider sniffing the device. With media queries you can effectively cater for these devices unless you are a large company with plenty of resources then I wouldn’t try for separate sites.

Mike, it’s not an avenue I’ve gone down. I know some people make a lot of money doing that but it seems like a bit of gamble to me. You’re best bet is to be working directly for clients or an employer.

@RedWheelbarrow @Georgina There’s a lot of debate about whether to redirect to a mobile-specific site or just use media querires with the same site. There’s no right answer, because it often depends on the kind of site you have. For small sites, the redirection is not very practical, as you have to build two sites. But for a huge site, it may be a better option. Here’s one article I’ve seen on it: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1392

@Ralph.m: Like I use Firebug to scale webmail designs for different platforms, web, mobile, tablet, etc.

I am looking at a project (an idea of my own I’d like to pursue) that would entail SMS, receive an SMS and send back a response (while updating the database), any suggestions for SMS services? To start usage would be low (obviously) but if I am even remotely right, it could take off to thousands a month, so growth needs to be considered

@redWheelbarrow, @PaulOB Thank you for the advice!

@ralph.m Thank you for the link!

ralph.m: Thanks again for your response. I would be interested in having a future webinar around these topics. Maybe George agrees.

Definitely

@Rob I haven’t used any tools for this (WYSIWYG etc.). If you really want to go that route, you are probably wanting some kind of framework. We discussed frameworks a bit earlier. There are some that are mobile-focused, like 320andup: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/

@Georgia. Have a look at this slideshow when you have time: http://www.slideshare.net/bryanrieger/rethinking-the-mobile-web-by-yiibu

@redWheelbarrow Feel free to flick me an email (hawk@sitepoint.com) with any ideas for future session and I’ll see what I can organise.

@markbrown4, thanks for the response. I’ve read a few articles/books on the theme avenue and just wondering how effective it is. There are so many themes already available, it seems you’d have to really blow them away to be successful.

Hi, My first time on a forum (I hope I’m doing this right) and I”m pretty new to web design and come without a coding / technical background. I’ve designed a few websites with lots of reading etc. but I feel like some more formal training would be a good move. Can you suggest a good starting point. I think I need something that covers most stuff just to make sure I’m developing good habits.

@Georgina I know there are lots of articles out there about mobile design. I can’t find them right now, but I’m sure you’ll find a lot via Google..

@ralph.m I shall totally do that. Thanks, Ralph!

@Ralph.m: OK. Thanks. Appreciate the feedback.

@PaulOB Thanks for the link- I bookmarked it to read tomorrow

@kerrie00 Welcome – and yup, you’re doing this right. :) Are you interested in taking a course, or are you looking for learner’s resources to self-train?

Either would be fine.

@PaulOB Just looked at a site I did using ems vs a site with px and increased the font size in chrome… px is certainly the way for us for now.

@Georgia Shameless plug - http://www.sitepoint.com/books/mobile1/

@kerrie00. Sitepoint does run some courses which are good (but aren’t free).https://learnable.com/sitepoint

@kerrie00 sitepoint is a great resource… Ive leart there a lot, just search through, Im sure youll finв a lot

lol ))

they also have amazing books

@kerrie00 The great thing about web design is that it’s quite easy to teach oneself. There are good books out there (some by SitePoint) and also video courses if you prefer that. It depends a bit on how you prefer to learn. I prefer books, myself, as they tend to build foundations carefully. Start with a good book on HTML and CSS. Then have a look at PHP and JavaScript. HTML and CSS will get you a long way, though. :-)

try to get a copy for yourself

@kerrie00 As Paul says, Learnable is a great resource. For $17 per month (you can quit at any time) you get access to all the SitePoint books and online courses.

@ralph.m i must type quicker)))

@kerrie00 I’ve also learned a lot at Sitepoint, typically my first stop is the forums when I run into a snag, do some searches then post my question if can’t find an answer already, almost always have a few potential solutions within a few hours

@jess.irwin.Not sure what you mean but I’d need to see an example of why ems weren’t working. You have to design with ems in mind.

@HAWK wasn’t that ebook on one of the geekgames prizes? So far 90% of my learning library is sitepoint materials and learnable courses. Thanks for the deals- I am on a totally tight (read nonexistent) budget

Tekamba, you’d want to do some research as there’s lots of options. Price and global SMS are two things I would check match your requirements.

@Kerrie00 As far as actual IRL courses go, that would depend where you are based. I didn’t have any formal training but was lucky enough to learn on the job, so probably am not the most qualified to answer.

@PaulOB http://nursery.org.au

Okay thanks. I’ve got sitepoint books. All good suggestions thanks. I’m based in Melbourne Australia. Does anyone know of any courses? distance education is fine too.

@Georgia I imagine it was. Are you part of our Facebook and Twitter communities? I frequently give away free books as prizes for quick contests. I also give away free books on the forums for really outstanding posts.

@markbrown4 Thanks, I have looked at a few, message-media.com, clickatell.com, twilio.com, and tropo.com are most likely, with Twilio and Tropo looking like decent places to start, but just curious if anyone has any direct experience with any SMS services

I’d love to attend some online cources too…

Along the lines of @Kerrie00′s question, would you say a design background is necessary to be a good web designer?

@HAWK as a side note, those games are highly addictive and not a good thing in a workplace :(

Learnable is a GREAT resource, I typically try to do some cramming, I’ll do a full weeks classes in 1 or maybe 2 days, you can get through a lot more quickly but requires a lot of “free” time to spend watching the vids and working through the material

@jess.irwin Haha, I know! The great thing about working at SitePoint is that it’s considered work to be playing them ;)

@mike yeah definitely!!! it is relevant to undestand the principles of beautiful design

@kerrie00 You can often find things like CAE courses in this sort of thing, although they can’t necessarily go into much depth due to the time available. I looked into TAFE and other courses a while back, but realized I’d have to give up several years and a king’s ransom to do them, so decided to stick to books!

3..

..

@HAWK The free books are nice… if I didn’t already own almost every title (multiples of some)

I know there are courses for setting up a business facebook account (as opposed to just a personal account), but I would like one from SitePoint. There are a lot of variables, and I don’t want to do it wrong. I’m not the last person on earth (although close) that doesn’t have a business account.

@kerrie00 Have you checked if Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ are planning anything? I’m doing their internet history course at the mo and its of a good standard and free :-)

@HAWK I don’t know if I am or not, but I will be by midnight my time, ha ha. thanks for the heads up. I agree with Tekamba- I’ve got so many books now I wonder how many I don’t have!

@mike but its easier tolearn rather than programming like php or java scripts

Both good visual design and layout coupled with good content organization. Content design is important, too!

@Mike I would definitely say that a design background is useful. It is easier to learn to code than to design. But as with anything, if you apply yourself and do enough reading, you can learn.

@jess.irwin. You’ve made the classic mistake of setting the height of elements that hold text in px. In most cases elements that hold text content should not have a height set as you just don’t know what size text I may have on my computer. If I have increased the dpi and set a minimum text size of 20px then your design is broken.

@georgia www.facebook.com/sitepoint and www.twitter.com/sitepointdotcom

@Mike Your background doesn’t really matter, as there are so many aspects to web design, it’s hard to cover them all. Your background might give you an edge in some respect, which is great. I can’t design for nuts, but in that case, if the design needs some real flair, I team up with a graphic designer tfor that aspect. Likewise, you can always team up with others for anything you are not strong in. I now have friends for every aspect of web design, from designers to programmers.

@PaulOB thanks for that, Paul- that’s something I’ll have to check for in my own designs

@paulOB I figured that :( More learning required I think. We pretty much just went ‘we should be using ems for font, lets do that’ but didn’t think it through or anything.

@Mike I came to development from an architecture background. I found that I applied the design aspect of architecture to sites and the transition was easy. My bf on the other hand is a brilliant coder but has NO confidence when it comes to design. It is a different way of thinking.

@jess.irwin. It’s a common problem where people think more about the design than the user. There has to be compromises of course but some designs just won’t be web friendly. Forcing things into tight spaces just won’t work and you have to code/design with that in mind. It’s not always easy and we all make the same mistakes at times – especially when the client is pushing us.

@anna, @HAWK, I guess I fall on the logical side so the code part isn’t as challenging as the design part (plus, I’ve had schooling on programming). I’ve no formal design training and wondering if I should.
@ralph.m, that’s good advice. Also probably a good way to learn the design side.
@HAWK, that’s kind of my problem. No confidence in my designs…

I have NO design skills (as far as being able to choose what looks good) so I’ve found having someone “artistic” around me to recommend colors, and design ideas has been a HUGE benefit, sometimes them NOT knowing HTML/CSS is also a plus as their thinking isn’t tinted by “that can’t be done” thoughts, they just know what they want and usually it just takes a little finagling to make their vision come to life, sometimes I originally thought I couldn’t do what they wanted

To quote web guru Zelman: “Content informs design; design without content is decoration. “

@Mike I’d start by reading a couple of design books. The next book that we’re releasing (out later this month) is on the design process. It might be a good place to start. There are some very logical aspects to design that some people don’t realise. Once you understand the process, the more intuitive things fall into place.

@redWheelbarrow. Good quote.

@mike I have technical background and have leart design principles on my own just from such resources like sitepoint. design has logic and if you know programming, youll be able to understand it too

@redWheelbarrow – love the quote! So zen-like.

@Mike The other thing I do is look at designs I really like and study them. Its a great way to learn. One things that helps with design is looking first at the content and what it needs. That makes it easy to develop a wireframe … and from there, your design is almost done. It’s not hard from this point to add some nice color and a few graphics. It may me ‘meat and potatoes’ design, but it’s fine in a lot of cases.

Sorry for the typo. His name is Zeldman.

@HAWK Oh oh oh!!! New books!!! Love receiving a Sitepoint package (and I don’t have to wait for it to start reading by getting the ebook pack (-:

” There are some very logical aspects to design that some people don’t realise.” I’m one of them for sure :D

SitePoint also has some nice books of design, such as http://www.sitepoint.com/books/design2/

@HAWK idea on release date?

I’m really enjoying this forum. thanks for all the suggestions. Just how would everyone recommend you make contact with a good graphical designer for the web. Or any suggestion son great resurces to learn more about design for the web?

Another one is Sexy Web Design: http://www.sitepoint.com/books/sexy1/

Before web design, I did newsletters, and I’ve found that the same basic layout principles work well. Use a font that is easy to read, include some line height to keep the lines from being too close. Use generous amounts of white space. Keep backgrounds, and graphics in general, from being too busy. Any graphic elements should complement the content.

kerrie: by careful with graphic designers. Some do not know web, only print. Big difference!

@tekamba Tentatively (but don’t quote me) 27 August for the print book and prob a week earlier for the ePack

@HAWK OK, quoted, if it’s not out on 27th you will hear from my lawyers!! :-P

@Mike When studying other design be sure you get knowledgeable about C.S.S. as some things that look really good don’t employ good HTML or C.S.S.

@kerrie00 What I do is find websites I admire for their design, layout, etc. and look at the footer to see who designed the site. Usually there’s a link back to a homepage or portfolio site. Word of mouth works for me, too

@kerrie00 There are lots of graphic designers in Melbourne. If you have a project for them to work on / collaborate with, I’m sure they will be happy to hear from you!

cool, just got sample of Sexy Web Design.. will read it tmrrw during the morning session)))

@Anna, @ralph.m, I have been reading a lot on design lately and finding that the way I observe things is changing. I have several books from sitepoint but mostly on the tech side. I’ve found the book “The Design of Everyday Things” to have really opened my eyes.
@ServerStorm, YES! I have found too often that a design I like is laid out with tables!

We have just over 5 mins left in the session (although you’re welcome to stick around as long as you like). Does anyone have questions that they haven’t asked yet?

And out of curiosity, how did you find this session? It’s a bit different from the ones that we usually run.

@kerrie00. There are some good design articles at Design Festival: http://designfestival.com/ (It’s part of sitepoint).

@mike get this one the Principles of beautiful webdesign

@Mike Design of Everyday Things – by Donald A. Norman?

And for anyone that wants to sign up for email reminders of future sessions, you can do so herehttps://www.facebook.com/sitepoint/app_115462065200508

Tools such as FireFox’s firebug, and Opera’s DragonFly or Chrome’s Console or Firebug light can be used to inspect what is happening with the HTML, CSS rules and even the Javascript. You can learn quite a lot by open these type of tools on pages that you like

And I’ll be posting the transcript for this session up on sitepoint.com later today (my time)

@HAWK thanks a lot for great chat!!!

@Tekamba, Correct. It can get a bit too technical but I’ve learned a lot from it.

@HAWK I must have liked sitepoint on facebook, because that is where I saw your post about it. It was difficult trying to find my way here, though, so I went back and signed up for the email reminders. This has done me a world of good!

Thanks to all

@HAWK any chance of some software that would allow threads for easier tracking of topics? would be a little tough real time, but just a thought

I found it from Sitepoint e-newsletter

@Anna You’re welcome. @Tekamba We have a great new interface designed, but it’ll take some developing.

@mike Placing my Amazon order, thanks for the tip

@HAWK, email reminder worked well for me.

signing up for the email reminders, I almost forgot though I remembered all morning just didn’t realize what time was so email just a little before start would be nice

@Tekamba Glad to be helpful! I hope you enjoy it, too.

@HAWK email also worked good for me

Thank you all, guys! I ve found many interesting things in this chat room… hope to “see” ya again! :) ciao!

See you all next time :)

Bye Anna. :-)

See ya

Thanks everyone! I really enjoyed this.

Likewise! Thanks for all the advice!

bye jess, Anna, scottmac, and Mike

Thanks everyone! @HAWK I’ll be watching for that book, love new reading material! I’ll have to finish @Mike suggestion before end of month

Thanks I will check out the Beautiful Web Design book.

If anyone has more questions, please head over to the SitePoint forums. We can go into a lot more depth there with answers and discussions. And there’s even a Getting Started with Web Deisgn forum there. :-)

Glad you all got something out of this. Would you be interested if I ran this kind of session on a 2 monthly basis?

Good call Ralph. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?16-Getting-Started-With-Web-Design

Thanks everyone!

See you around sitepoint.com/forums kerrie00

A regular forum like this good be great!

And to all my forum staff here, thanks. You guys make my job a pleasure.

Yes, good one @ralph.m

@HAWK Thanks Sarah. This was fun! :-)