Robin Williams Web Design Workshop

by Williams, Robin; Tollett, John; Rohr, Dave

• ISBN13: 9780201748673
• ISBN10: 0201748673
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-25
• Publisher: Peachpit Pr

Summary

With Robin Williams' guiding hand, non-professionals, artists, and designers alike have learned the principles behind elegant design. Now that much of this same audience is working on the Web, Robin has focused her attention on the specific needs of this medium with Robin Williams Web Design Workshop. John Tollett and Dave Rohr pitch in with their illustration and graphics experience to create a handsome and engaging instructional book. The ideas in this book tackle all aspects of Web design theory, including all the ways that color, fonts, clip art, photographs and so on contribute to creating a visual impression. Then the book takes the user through site planning and layout, navigability, and functionality, all in Robin Williams' clear and accessible style.

Author Biography

Robin Williams is the author of more than twenty award-winning and best-selling books, including The Little Mac Book, The Non-Designer's Web Book, Robin Williams Design Workshop, and many more. Robin has been teaching graphic design at colleges, universities, and in workshops across North America since the early 1980s. Her reputation as a teacher of design and computer technology is world-wide and her books have been printed in almost two dozen languages. John Tollett is a designer, art director, and illustrator with over thirty years' experience in the graphic design world, including work at a dozen advertising agencies, as a freelancer and consultant, and as the co-founder of a web site design firm. He is the co-author of several best-selling books, including The Non-Designer's Web Book, The Little iBook Book, and Robin Williams Design Workshop. David Rohr is an experienced print and web designer who has over fifteen years' experience in advertising, publishing, and web development. He has been developing web sites since 1995 and is a founding partner and creative director in Panorama Point (www.panoramapoint.com), an award-winning web development firm.

Table of Contents

Section One: A Prelude
A Visual Glossary	1	(12)
Visual explanations of terms we use in this book that you should know
Clipart, Stock Images, and Groovy Fonts	13	(14)
Taking advantage of stock stuff in creating design, buttons, animations, and other elements on a web page
Spiff up Your Photographs	27	(34)
Some ideas and tips on juicing up your photographs to enhance your web pages
It's Horizontal World	61	(14)
A reminder that our monitors create a horizontal design space, which takes a little more thought to design within
Section Two: Plan that Site
Design is Not the First Step	75	(24)
In fact, you have lots of work to do before you ever open your web authoring software, including developing your client relationship
Enhanced Functionality	99	(18)
Consider these options for your web site before you present a proposal to the client
Organizing Your Content	117	(10)
Especially on large and complex sites, developing your site architecture and creating a site map is indispensable
Organizing the Work Flow	127	(6)
From start to finish, how the work flows on a large project
The Design and Development Process	133	(12)
From thumbnails, sketches, and comps to presentation and approval
Test Your Web Sites	145	(6)
Tips for testing your site so you and your clients will have fewer surprises when it's posted
Web Site Work is Never Done	151	(10)
Techniques to ensure your site will be found by automated search engines, plus a few tips about maintenance
Section Three: Idea Source
Slicing and Dicing	161	(24)
Break out of the HTML box by designing visually, then slicing the image into pieces and reconstructing within a table
Something about Backgrounds	185	(32)
Commonsense approaches to backgrounds, including how to make large, single-image background, edge images, and hybrid colors
Elegant Navigation	217	(16)
The goals of persistent navigation, plus tips on how to analyze a navigation system for usability
Button Button	233	(14)
Lots of ideas for buttons, including how to create readable small type on them
Rollovers and Image Swaps	247	(12)
Examples of clever uses of these techniques and tips on creating them
Site Index and Searches	259	(6)
The importance of a site index page or a search feature, and how to go about installing a search feature
HTML Fonts	265	(8)
Making the HTML text as readable as possible for all viewers, plus a bit about dynamic fonts
Cascading Style Sheets	273	(14)
What are cascading style sheets, when would you use them, and how do you use them
Dynamic Pages	287	(12)
An introduction to the sorts of technologies necessary to provide a dynamic user experience and also to control content dynamically (on-the-fly)
Frames	299	(12)
The good, the bad, and the ugly about frames
Animated GIFs	311	(14)
Tips on using animated GIFs without annoying your viewers, plus how to make them smaller in file size so they load faster
Motion Graphics	325	(18)
An overview of Flash and motion graphics
Forms Control	343	(12)
Techniques for creating not only good-looking, but functional forms
Virtual Last Chapter	355
An introduction to the web site that supports this book with live examples of the sites and techniques we featured throughout
The End Matters Index and colophon