Three Stages in Good Web Design
When building a solid web site, the design behind it can be done in many different ways. The easy and quick way is to find an existing template, be it through a given CMS such as Joomla or WordPress, or just copying an old template and swapping out images and text.
Keep in mind these are the quick and easy ways, but are not going to produce high quality designs. In order to produce high quality designs, there are three stages in good web design.
Full Design
When you start in a fully custom built web site, the design should start first and stand alone. It should fit with the theme that is being targeted, and especially to match with any logos that are going to be used and so forth. The colors need to be selected well. All of the details are determined first, and this design is done in a graphics editor. The construction of the web site itself will be of some concern, but to build a good web site, the design should stand alone. Adjustments for web construction come next.
Template Build
After completing the full design, the next step is to turn this design into a solid template. This template is what the site will be built into, to make it easier to place content (graphics or text) into this design. Different elements of the site are pulled apart here, such as a table of contents or an eye-catching mouse-over option. This is all built in this stage, and should be completed before moving to the next stage.
Content Development
Once the template is finished the content can finally be placed. At this point, the design has been tweaked, the template is polished and is ready for placing of content. At this point the content placement should be relatively easy – the first two stages are the harder parts of the project. At long as the CSS fits with the design and template, the text size, colors, and fonts will all match nicely with the design, and any images chosen should also fit well.
Finally, when completed, a fully built custom site like this takes a bit more time and effort but comes across as the professional project it is. Use these three stages in good web design to wow the clients you build sites for and to be able to be proud of your work.
