design my designing mind!

November 19, 2007 9:49 PM

Help a design-impaired mind finish his dream project.

How can one come up with a design/layout that is both simple and elegant (e.g. joshspear.com) and scalable? Is there some technique, principles, etc. that can be followed to end up with a satisfactory design? What are the technical limitations that put a cap on the awesomeness of a web design?

I am a computer engineer with a good coding background and average knowledge in HTML/CSS.

posted by howiamdifferent to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Not exactly what you asked, but I found this book to be helpful.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:13 PM on November 19, 2007

Joshspear.com is a WordPress site that looks like it's using a pretty typical WordPress theme. Go look at available stock themes at WordPress.com and I'll bet you'll find something you like.
posted by gum at 10:57 PM on November 19, 2007

Yeah, your asking questions that lifelong designers continue to ask every day.

2nd-ing the Non Designer's Design Book, and taking a look at Wordpress. Sorry if this is not directly answering the questions, but it might accomplish your main goal of doing your dream project.

Get a free blog at Wordpress.com

Here's some of the available themes. Keep in mind that any theme can be customized by using your own graphic in place of the supplied one. My pitifully non-updated blog is a simple example of customizing a supplied template.

Even if you don't end up using Wordpress as your ultimate tool for accomplishing your goal, you will learn a lot by playing with it and seeing what works and what doesn't, and what features you may need, and what features you don't.

There are plenty of designers familiar enough with Wordpress that they can help you through the process. You might even have a friend or two who can help. Good luck, and make it fun.
posted by The Deej at 11:18 PM on November 19, 2007

*you're not your. It's late. Me type and spel no good eny more
posted by The Deej at 11:26 PM on November 19, 2007

You might want to check out this tutorial as well.
Design an Awesome Website

As far as technical limitations go, one always has to remember that it's the web and not print. Viewers of your site will have different connection speeds, browser that render differently, preferences concerning Flash, different window sizes, etc. That said, a clean design should handle many of these issues.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 12:02 AM on November 20, 2007

The other option is to pull together some sites you like (as examples) and get a designer to Photoshop up a new site design for you. S/he can either turn over the PSD file and you can code it, or deliver the CSS and an HTML template to you. When we do that, the cost is pretty negligible.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:10 AM on November 20, 2007

DarlingBri has made a very sound suggestion. After struggling with my concept of a new corporate identity I had a meeting with a designer, rambled endlessly to her, and had it handed to me on a plate shortly afterwards. If your budget permits I strongly urge you to go this route and free up your time for other aspects of your dream project.
posted by Umhlangan at 6:06 AM on November 20, 2007

The OPP mentions scalability, and I think that's a big problem. There are lots of very stripped-down blogs that look great. But if you've got a complicated community-oriented site, it's hard to avoid putting more stuff on the front page in order to make the site's functions discoverable.

Technical limitations? You've got limited control over typography; You can only make very limited assumptions about what the size of your readers' browser windows/javascript support/color fidelity/visual acuity.

Guidelines? As mentioned upthread, you could fill many books. And with websites, a lot of this is a matter of functional or interaction design in addition to graphic design. Grid-based design has become popular of late, for good reason.
posted by adamrice at 7:14 AM on November 20, 2007

The Non Designer's Design Book is a fantastic resource. If only all books could be so concise.

Ms. Williams also wrote a book on web design for non-designers. I'd check that out too.
posted by i_love_squirrels at 6:48 AM on May 8