November 9, 2007 at 10:40About design, or why printers have nothing to do on the web
* A slightly corrected article from my LiveJournal, I think it is more appropriate here * There
are few designers. There are even fewer good designers who do not hide the flaws of work behind simple tricks. Well, there are almost no good designers who understand the specifics of working with the Web. I did not have time to get a new job - I already wanted to curse the local designer.
Now I will explain why. Moreover, this business is not even highly specialized, almost anyone who wants to make his own pug on the Web can face this. If you don’t decide to go the easy way, like tying a template for a site from open source or, even worse, use the service that has become a masterpiece of bad taste narod.ru.
In general, well, for starters, they gave me a small assignment for layout. Bulletin board for a siteer. They send me ... JPEG 4 by 3 thousand pixels. At the same time with a fairly complex graphics. What the...? Yes, give me a normal source in the PSD! Yeah. The bosses are debited from the designer, and after a few minutes the PSD file is in my working folder. One name, not a PSD shnik. Also 4 by 3 thousand pixels, and, of course, in one layer. Where are the normal layers so that I can normally cut the same graphic backgrounds? How did he do that? It turned out - the designer is not a Weber at all, he is a polygraphist (and not so hot, but more on that later). And I painted everything in ... Adobe Illustrator, from which I thoughtlessly (without even thinking about the screen resolution) exported to all other formats! No, I understand everything, for printing, such graphics are the very thing, because it can be scaled as you like and printed on anything, it depends not on the fixed position of the points, but on the drawn geometric shapes, their proportions and position. BUT! The website as such is attached to the screen, to those points. And that's why, right now, I’ll say one rule. If you do not create sites on a vector flash (and there’s nothing good IMHO), then:
Photoshop drives. Yes, at worst, even MS Paint will come down, although without layer support it is still sometimes tight. And if you’re used to drawing in a vector, and otherwise you can’t, then at least take the trouble to export normally.
Well, they made the designer still suffer. He sends the next day some semblance of layers. Although the text is separated from the substrates, it’s good. Another thing is that ALL substrates were merged into one, and this is not a gut. And you can’t get off with a simple copy-paste coating. Because these underlays on the page were a complex system of gradients. Both horizontal and vertical. The verticals caused me another attack of foul language. For how else, if not obscene, to explain that it’s constant on the print width-height, pervert as you want. And the height of each web page is different from the rest - for we only make a TEMPLATE, and how long it will be filled in is not known in advance. Correspondingly, the gradient fill coming from the center and stretching across the entire width of the page will not work for us. Similarly, with the filling of individual text blocks, we do not think that they should all be straight the same length, right? Accordingly, here is another rule for you:
It took a long and tedious fight, because, I repeat, all this was merged into one layer. I tried to somehow make a page with this, in the end, looking at this pornography, scored. To begin with, I teared a small piece from the top of the page, where the substrate was horizontal. I made it the main background of the HTML formatted, and prescribed a fixed height for a while, just to see something ... I opened it in the browser and took a screenshot. Already in Photoshop, I applied a layer with column headings copied from the original to this screenshot (why these headings are graphic - I’ll say further, which solution isn’t so hot either), and from there I began to cut the graphics. Perversion, right?
So, here's why the graphic headers. In general, I’ll honestly say that I am a supporter of clear information content, fast loading, and generally a person who has been sitting on gprs for a long time with pictures turned off ... I DO NOT LOVE graphic menus, headers, and so on. And on top of insanity I consider the menu on flash in the absence of a site map or some other alternative. Try turning off the pictures and you will understand why. A text link is much better, and under it there is a darling graphic background. Well, no, here the designer heaped up, completely cutting off the very possibility of such a thing. The fact is that the same font is used for the page title, menu and subheadings (consisting of a picture and a signature). Absolutely absent in the standard delivery of any OS. And therefore, if you register the display of the text with this font, then most users will instead see it unclear what. Yes, it’s deeply indifferent to the press, but you still need to take care of users on the Web. In this case, I had to do everything with graphics by writing an alternative text for the artwork. But still this is pornography, IMHO. So - another thing that I recommend hacking myself on the nose:
Standard fonts are also beautiful, and the search engine will probably notice the text heading than the alt to the picture.
And further. Again, if you do not make static pages on the public.ru, which is the day before yesterday, then it is time to finally find out that most of the elements of the web page are automatically generated, and therefore many elements are made according to the same pattern and have a standard design. I said STANDARD! And then on those blocks with graphic headers, which, in theory, should be displayed in a single script on one sample, there were also frames. In one block, the margin of this frame is 20 pixels, in the other - 15, in the third it is generally unclear where it went. And since it was organically inscribed in the headlines and somehow I did not want to mess with the alteration, the framework was also removed altogether. Yes, the headings, due to the different sizes of the pictures to the text, are also somewhat uneven. And do I need to tell the output script what exactly in this cell do you need to change the position of the content? The moral of this fable is this:
And finally, learn to use the “alignment” tool, which is present in any serious graphic editor.
Such a tirade. Please do not repeat the above errors. Otherwise, it will only strengthen the view that
are few designers. There are even fewer good designers who do not hide the flaws of work behind simple tricks. Well, there are almost no good designers who understand the specifics of working with the Web. I did not have time to get a new job - I already wanted to curse the local designer.
Now I will explain why. Moreover, this business is not even highly specialized, almost anyone who wants to make his own pug on the Web can face this. If you don’t decide to go the easy way, like tying a template for a site from open source or, even worse, use the service that has become a masterpiece of bad taste narod.ru.
In general, well, for starters, they gave me a small assignment for layout. Bulletin board for a siteer. They send me ... JPEG 4 by 3 thousand pixels. At the same time with a fairly complex graphics. What the...? Yes, give me a normal source in the PSD! Yeah. The bosses are debited from the designer, and after a few minutes the PSD file is in my working folder. One name, not a PSD shnik. Also 4 by 3 thousand pixels, and, of course, in one layer. Where are the normal layers so that I can normally cut the same graphic backgrounds? How did he do that? It turned out - the designer is not a Weber at all, he is a polygraphist (and not so hot, but more on that later). And I painted everything in ... Adobe Illustrator, from which I thoughtlessly (without even thinking about the screen resolution) exported to all other formats! No, I understand everything, for printing, such graphics are the very thing, because it can be scaled as you like and printed on anything, it depends not on the fixed position of the points, but on the drawn geometric shapes, their proportions and position. BUT! The website as such is attached to the screen, to those points. And that's why, right now, I’ll say one rule. If you do not create sites on a vector flash (and there’s nothing good IMHO), then:
design (at worst - give it to the layout) sites ONLY in raster graphics editors!
Photoshop drives. Yes, at worst, even MS Paint will come down, although without layer support it is still sometimes tight. And if you’re used to drawing in a vector, and otherwise you can’t, then at least take the trouble to export normally.
Well, they made the designer still suffer. He sends the next day some semblance of layers. Although the text is separated from the substrates, it’s good. Another thing is that ALL substrates were merged into one, and this is not a gut. And you can’t get off with a simple copy-paste coating. Because these underlays on the page were a complex system of gradients. Both horizontal and vertical. The verticals caused me another attack of foul language. For how else, if not obscene, to explain that it’s constant on the print width-height, pervert as you want. And the height of each web page is different from the rest - for we only make a TEMPLATE, and how long it will be filled in is not known in advance. Correspondingly, the gradient fill coming from the center and stretching across the entire width of the page will not work for us. Similarly, with the filling of individual text blocks, we do not think that they should all be straight the same length, right? Accordingly, here is another rule for you:
The site is not a static picture! Before screwing up a bunch of things, think about how all this will look with different contents.
It took a long and tedious fight, because, I repeat, all this was merged into one layer. I tried to somehow make a page with this, in the end, looking at this pornography, scored. To begin with, I teared a small piece from the top of the page, where the substrate was horizontal. I made it the main background of the HTML formatted, and prescribed a fixed height for a while, just to see something ... I opened it in the browser and took a screenshot. Already in Photoshop, I applied a layer with column headings copied from the original to this screenshot (why these headings are graphic - I’ll say further, which solution isn’t so hot either), and from there I began to cut the graphics. Perversion, right?
So, here's why the graphic headers. In general, I’ll honestly say that I am a supporter of clear information content, fast loading, and generally a person who has been sitting on gprs for a long time with pictures turned off ... I DO NOT LOVE graphic menus, headers, and so on. And on top of insanity I consider the menu on flash in the absence of a site map or some other alternative. Try turning off the pictures and you will understand why. A text link is much better, and under it there is a darling graphic background. Well, no, here the designer heaped up, completely cutting off the very possibility of such a thing. The fact is that the same font is used for the page title, menu and subheadings (consisting of a picture and a signature). Absolutely absent in the standard delivery of any OS. And therefore, if you register the display of the text with this font, then most users will instead see it unclear what. Yes, it’s deeply indifferent to the press, but you still need to take care of users on the Web. In this case, I had to do everything with graphics by writing an alternative text for the artwork. But still this is pornography, IMHO. So - another thing that I recommend hacking myself on the nose:
Do not overuse the graphics.
Standard fonts are also beautiful, and the search engine will probably notice the text heading than the alt to the picture.
And further. Again, if you do not make static pages on the public.ru, which is the day before yesterday, then it is time to finally find out that most of the elements of the web page are automatically generated, and therefore many elements are made according to the same pattern and have a standard design. I said STANDARD! And then on those blocks with graphic headers, which, in theory, should be displayed in a single script on one sample, there were also frames. In one block, the margin of this frame is 20 pixels, in the other - 15, in the third it is generally unclear where it went. And since it was organically inscribed in the headlines and somehow I did not want to mess with the alteration, the framework was also removed altogether. Yes, the headings, due to the different sizes of the pictures to the text, are also somewhat uneven. And do I need to tell the output script what exactly in this cell do you need to change the position of the content? The moral of this fable is this:
Follow the same style. Pity the automation.
And finally, learn to use the “alignment” tool, which is present in any serious graphic editor.
Such a tirade. Please do not repeat the above errors. Otherwise, it will only strengthen the view that
Polygraphists have NOTHING to do in web design!