Overhauling a website

[Dark Fox 151]

Hey pony pals, I'm helping a friend redesign his website and I know a bit of html, I'm looking for some tips/advice on what I should do, would it be better to use dream weaver or whatever?

 

If you're interested he sells clothes and things

 

toastyco.com

[Sky Warden 2,243]

I'm afraid that the skill you need most is programming with PHP. Dreamweaver is good, but I always prefer to code anything with simple text editor software like gEdit (Linux's notepad).

 

As for the design, I'm not so good at it actually, but I feel like the current design is kinda dull. There's nothing iconic enough which makes me remember this website, while it's important at some points. You know, this website has that large and impressing banner saying MLP Forums which is the website title.

 

About the colour scheme, even though the contrast is enough, it doesn't feel so nice on my eyes. Most people like simple colours for the main content more. Black white is actually very good. You can use your creativity to decorate the... everything other than the main content. For example, this website uses simple black-text-on-white for the main content, and its light blue decoration makes this website more comfortable. The main navigation near the banner is what I mean with "use your creativity to decorate bla bla bla."

 

Usually, a website has a header, main content, and a footer to organize things, but it's not really a pattern you should follow. Many websites use their own template, and still look very good.

 

Go to some websites and try to find out what makes them interesting or dull. There are actually many things about web design, but I'm not a master of it and I can't remember the rest. May add some more later if I remember.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Aerial Stream

[Dark Fox 151]

I'm afraid that the skill you need most is programming with PHP. Dreamweaver is good, but I always prefer to code anything with simple text editor software like gEdit (Linux's notepad).

 

As for the design, I'm not so good at it actually, but I feel like the current design is kinda dull. There's nothing iconic enough which makes me remember this website, while it's important at some points. You know, this website has that large and impressing banner saying MLP Forums which is the website title.

 

About the colour scheme, even though the contrast is enough, it doesn't feel so nice on my eyes. Most people like simple colours for the main content more. Black white is actually very good. You can use your creativity to decorate the... everything other than the main content. For example, this website uses simple black-text-on-white for the main content, and its light blue decoration makes this website more comfortable. The main navigation near the banner is what I mean with "use your creativity to decorate bla bla bla."

 

Usually, a website has a header, main content, and a footer to organize things, but it's not really a pattern you should follow. Many websites use their own template, and still look very good.

 

Go to some websites and try to find out what makes them interesting or dull. There are actually many things about web design, but I'm not a master of it and I can't remember the rest. May add some more later if I remember.

 

Nice and concise, thanks bro, would PHP be hard to pick up if I know html? Also, is there any benefit to starting from scratch rather than getting a template? Because right now he says he basically wants an entirely new site.

[Sky Warden 2,243]

Nice and concise, thanks bro, would PHP be hard to pick up if I know html? Also, is there any benefit to starting from scratch rather than getting a template? Because right now he says he basically wants an entirely new site.

 

If you had a good tutorial, it wouldn't be so hard. It won't take a short time to learn though. If you're new to programming, you must learn patiently. Unfortunately I don't have a good PHP tutorial since I learned it by the manual. It's a big boring document which looks like a digital phone book. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who's new to programming.

 

Starting from scratch gives you more freedom and better understanding of your own website, and is what I do most of the time. Sometimes a nice template you find in the Internet doesn't fulfill all of your needs or has too many contents than you actually need. That's why I prefer to look for templates I like, and try to duplicate and alter it according to my needs by myself, but that's just me having no deadline.

 

There are some PHP frameworks which will help you a lot in making a website, but of course, you will need to learn PHP first before you can use them. Try a CMS like Joomla maybe? You can make websites by simply clicking here and there. You can import templates and edit the content with ease.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Aerial Stream