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To most people the process of building a web site remains
somewhat of a mystery. This confusion probably stems
from the fact that there is a cornucopia of web sites
on the Internet. Even with wide variety of sites, every
single one can be divided into two sections: front-end
and back-end.
The front-end is the first thing that it is designed.
It encompasses the look and feel of a web site. This
is probably the most established part of the web site
production process. Design has been around since Guttenberg
printed his first bible. Much of what has been used
in print media (especially art magazines) has transferred
to the web.
Most well thought out web sites start off with sketches
on paper. We like using the big huge box of crayons,
the one with the crayon sharpener built in. Most of
the colors in the "big box" are pleasing to
the eye and are web friendly. If you use begin paying
attention to sites you'll notice that only a few colors
are actually used, 256 to be exact. Only about 100 of
those won't give you a headache when you look at them.
On request we will give these early designs to a client
that wants to control the look and feel of their site.
The site, of course, never ends up looking like the
early designs. The same idea and concept is there but
because of restrictions colors and whole images are
lost.
This brings us to the next part of the front-end, the
actual site creation. This is what many people view
as the most important, which is what separates a professional
looking site from an amateur one.
The images are created using products from across the
board. Mainly, designers stick to industry standards
like Photoshop and Illustrator. After getting the basic
image in terms of proportions and size the designer
should create the static HTML page.
This is the basic page you would see if you viewed
the page source. This is one of the most rewarding,
most hated and most tedious part of the web design process.
Each browser displays a page differently. Since most
users either use Internet Explorer 4+ or Netscape 4.5
we cater to those two. Sometimes we build a different
site for each, trying to maintain the same layout.
That concludes the front-end section. Personal sites
and some small business sites stop here. While this
maybe acceptable today, tomorrow any web site hoping
to attract and keep visitors is going to have a strong
back-end.
There are many sites and website designers that offer
premade templates, these have the entire graphical layout
that a page needs.
For those with little or no experience with website
design software, templates have quickly become a practical
solution to professional website design. Most of the
top end sites offer a huge selection of very impressive,
easy-to-edit website templates. All you have to do is
check your email containing the link to download the
.zip file. The html in these templates is compatible
with Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft
Frontpage. The major advantage is the price, they run
anywhere from $20 to $70. Another great advantage is
you don't have to hire a web designer, who usually takes
1 to 2 weeks to produce a page of such high quality.
Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save
thousands of dollars on design fees by using website
templates.
There are also some exception sites, such as http://www.web-site-templates.org
that provide packages of templates at one price, instead
of providing a different price for each template.
About the author:
Alexandru Marias is an IT student mentaining software
sites like: www.amicutilities.com,www.downloadsplaza.com,
www.fungamesplaza.com, www.bluedownloads.com
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