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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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