DOBALADA CORTE ( NOTES ON DESIGN )
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Personally, I actually think I'm pretty mediocre at design. Most of my style and technique (if I can say that without sounding like an ass) is just a result of me working at it for years. Like with any other learned skill, you just keep on doing it until you learn more and more. I've come a long way since my first sites, but every time I open up Photoshop, I still learn something new (mostly by accident).

Sometimes, I get questions asking how I learned to design and where I get my influences from. I learned how to design from practice, over a long period of time. There's really two parts to design -- first of all, there's the technical side, which is the side that involves learning the tools that you're using. A lot of people think this is the hardest part, and it is, at times. I can remember any number of times when Photoshop had thoroughly stumped me. The technical side is something you just have to learn as you go, either through tutorials or experimentation. Personally, I rarely use tutorials because it's hard to find a tutorial that really explains the specific effect or action that I want to achieve. It extends to more than just your graphics program, but also to others like image optimization programs and even your HTML editor. It's really very self explanatory, I think -- how are you going to make a website without knowing how to even save an image in your image editor? You have to be comfortable enough with your programs to work with them.

The other (and in my opinion, the more important) part is style. Style and technique are totally different things. In my definition, technique is manipulating your tools to get the desired effect. Style, however, is the inspiration for the desired effect. Style is something that people try to emulate, and it's the hardest thing to develop. You have to be comfortable with your technique to be able to experiment, and refine your personal style. You can't have one without the other, I think. On the technical side, I'm fairly comfortable with my graphics editor of choice (which is Adobe Photoshop). I've been a Photoshop user since version 5.0, so I'm more or less used to the interface and its abilities -- but I still have a very, very long way to go. I learned by accident, most of the time. I think my influences come from my personality, and what I think is an "ideal" layout. We all have notions of an ideal layout, things that make us smile, or make the site a better place to visit. I try my hardest to emulate my ideal layout, and see how it all works out in the end.

"Ideal Layout?" -- If you're not already aware, I'm a horribly compulsive organizer. I like well defined and large text areas, clear navigation, and a clean look. I don't like overly frilly scripts or effects. Simplicity is really a lost art, sometimes. Doesn't it make my style sound boring? ^_^;; I like to throw in one major focus point and let everything else draw attention to it. Visual balance is a very important part of a layout to me, and I find layouts with many focal points disorienting and sort of sloppy. That's just my serving suggestion, though. ^^; My compulsive nature carries over into layout creation as well. ^^;; I carry a notepad with me where ever I go, and sometimes I'll see something that catches my eye, or get an idea for a menu arrangement. My boyfriend's even seen me doodling on cocktail napkins. I don't really create an entire blueprint of my layout beforehand, but I do work out specifics -- like potential menu navigation, general placement of the text area, etc. Once I have some sort of a template in hand, I go image searching. Once I find "that" image, I open Photoshop and tinker with it for a while. I can't really describe the tinkering process, since it's mostly doing and undoing things. ^^;; Eventually, I'll come up with something I like and have it sliced and the layout coded. Some of my favourite things to incorporate into a layout are busy backgrounds (pixels, textured, patterned), lacy fringes on text areas and borders, and cute rollovers (often with pixel icons for mousovers).

While I'm working, I usually have music playing, since I don't like to work in silence. Sometimes, that affects the way a layout is made. I'm not in the usual habit of using songs as inspiration, but sometimes I do like to insert song lyrics into a layout. I don't have any set rules, really -- I treat every layout like a separate case, and do whatever I feel to it. Most of the time, it turns out all right. ^_^;;

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