Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
noahlitvin.posterous.com
Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#2Would the logo look nicer if it was a light colour? The logo and the main copy text seem to fight for attention.
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#3Would the logo look nicer if it was a light colour? The logo and the main copy text seem to fight for attention.
or make the middle background lighter.
Edit: Try #ffefd0
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#4"Use gradients and drop shadows like salt and pepper."
This can work in some situations, but you should also be careful of over-using these accents. If you look at a site like amazon.com, for example, you'll see that they use solid colors and "flat" text more than gradients and drop shadows.
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#5Would the logo look nicer if it was a light colour? The logo and the main copy text seem to fight for attention.
or make the middle background lighter. Edit: Try #ffefd0
Super quick example of what I mean: http://www.balloonagencies.com.au/bookshout.jpg
(typed browse too quick)
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#6"Use gradients and drop shadows like salt and pepper." This can work in some situations, but you should also be careful of over-using these accents. If you look at a site like amazon.com, for example, you'll see that they use solid colors and "flat" text more than gradients and drop shadows.
Gradients and drop-shadows require space to be effective.
Pages also need white space to help organize content and avoid crowding.
So, if you go with gradients or drop-shadows (or effects in that realm) know that you're doing so at the expensive of a resource that adds readability and overall usability.
That's not an argument against using these things, just an argument against gratuitous application. (Consider that Amazon, for example, manages to get a good deal of content on their pages while still being fairly easy to grok.)
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#7"Developing design skills is a summer project of it's own."
Correction: "Learning how to use Photoshop is a summer project of it's own".
I appreciate the linkbait and all, but saying you've developed sufficient enough design skills after one site redesign is like saying you should be an engineering manager because you developed your blog in Frontpage.
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#8Without question the number one thing novice designers don't understand is how long it takes to create a good design. Even great designers that have years of muscle-memory can spend hours upon hours on a design.
Novices generally don't appreciate this and just don't take enough time to produce good work.
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#9I'm at the point now where I'll never design for my projects again. I've found the talent available on odesk.com is amazing and for a negligible investment I can have an amazing site to show my work in the best light. The cost is easily justifiable as I'd rather spend the money on someone talented than waste time doing something I suck at (and have no intention of becoming better).
Re: Lessons Learned: A non-designer's attempt at a redesign
#10"Developing design skills is a summer project of it's own." Correction: "Learning how to use Photoshop is a summer project of it's own". I appreciate the linkbait and all, but saying you've developed sufficient enough design skills after one site redesign is like saying you should be an engineering manager because you developed your blog in Frontpage.
"saying you've developed sufficient enough design skills after one site redesign"
He's developed sufficient enough design skills to make his site look better than plain jane HTML. He's not claiming anything more.
There's nothing wrong with developing design skills over a summer -- I can develop Python skills over a summer without claiming that I'll be correcting Guido at the end of it.
This is hardly linkbait.