New ways of layout creation, Newbie in need of advice.

Shaun posted this at 17:51 — 16th February 2006.

Joined: Nov 2005

Evening,
I've posted here quite a few times with my problems and I've always left with a smile. Thanks for being a friendly community.

Now, my web-design started in frontpage and a year ago I've moved onto dreamweaver. I took some advice and started learning CSS too. Now, I've hit a massive snag.

All my websites look the same, it's always... banner on top, navigation below banner or to the left and content in the middle. It's starting to get tiring now as my creations are... well Awful! So, I started creating something different in Photoshop, a whole layout. So I've created a page but I don't know how to turn it into a layout.

I've got my psd here, it's just a practise page. I'm wanting to open that up in Dreamweaver so I can add my content. I know I've to slice it, I've done all the slicing but I'm getting really confused when I try and put it together in Dreamweaver.

Is this even a good way of designing web-layouts? I know that if I could work with these in Dreamweaver, the sky would be the limit.

If anyone could shed some light on this, I'd really appreciate it. Sorry for the huge post, but I tend to ramble on a bit.

I really want to learn as much as I can because web-design is what I'm aiming for after I leave school. So, any advice on design would be great as well as links, tutorials etc.
Thanks guys,
Shaun.

mrksoliz posted this at 20:00 — 16th February 2006.

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Feb 2006

If you know enough about css you could position the images where you want them just create a class or id then use this code { position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; height: 0px; width: 0px; }' adjust all the px to the height and width of your images and top and left to place it where you want on the page. you will have to do this for each image

Busy posted this at 20:08 — 16th February 2006.

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

I wasn't able to view your .psd (end of file error).

How about making a site without any images (just CSS).

Content is the main key. Start with just your text, say a day in the life of and then each day or week design (postition) the layout around it. try use less images or more images until you find that happy medium.

good luck

Shaun posted this at 20:19 — 16th February 2006.

He has: 52 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Thanks guys, truley grateful.

Michael Allison posted this at 22:08 — 16th February 2006.

He has: 37 posts

Joined: Feb 2006

I'll have my site up soon. You will be able to get a lot of insight about the possibilities with css just by looking. But, in the meantime, I highly recommend this site for straight-forward css mechanics:

http://www.cssplay.co.uk/index.html

I'm sure there are countless more sites devoted to css, like zen garden and WDG, for example. But, I really like Stu's no-nonsense approach.

By the way, I should warn you. Once you start playing with css in earnest, it will probably become an addiction. I know I'm thoroughly hooked, anyway!

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
-Henry David Thoreau

Shaun posted this at 17:00 — 17th February 2006.

He has: 52 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Ooo.. Thanks. That link is great, could you pass me a private message once you get your site up by any chance? Thanks for the help, I've been studying a lot more CSS stuff, only thing I can't get is 2 coloumns... text on the left and right but I'm progressing slowly.
Thanks all!