[Synotic]

OK, I need some suggestions on how to make a simple and attractive page. I am already familiar with web design, HTML, graphics, etc... But most of my designs are the kind that use lots of color, fill up everything, no empty space etc... Some examples... http://homepage.mac.com/synotic/assss/ http://homepage.mac.com/synotic/adiumdev/ http://homepage.mac.com/synotic/macnnrevision.gif which is my revised idea of the front page, which while it has white space, only in the content, and almost everything is filled up. Now I am tinking about making a very simple page, which is primarily white/text based. But I want to make it attractive. I am just not used to doing it. Images will be integrated. Nav bar will probably be graphics, but it will look like mainly plain text. The Apple design is kind of what I am thinking like apple.com/imac apple.com/powermac ...all those pages. But this page won't be as complex. Like making something like this: http://www.harvard.edu/ a bit better (no that's not the site, just an example) Suggestions like there should be no border on images, 1 pixel stroke on them. Colored bolded subheaders, fonts... Etc.. Thanks for any help.

[Adam Betts]

Avoid:

Thick black stroke
Heavy/Over-used of Shadow
"Welcome to this page blah blah"
Tiny text
Graphic text (you really need to learn how to use CSS)

[derbs]

well, i just spent half an hour writing a massive post, and then IE ****ing crashed. Here we go again

[derbs]

it seem like you want quite corporate feel for your site, so you want to avoid using colourful or dark greys for your background colour. Bright colours look cheesy, in fact all web-safe colours do as well. Dark greys look imposing, unless the content part is very large and white/light.

I like a fixed-width content area, perhaps centered, bordered on each side by a 1-pixel thin light grey line down each side, with maybe a very subtle drop shadow on each side. The majority of sites are top-left aligned, but i like a thin border on the right to finish the site off (unlike the harvard site).

Be careful with use of colour. Use sparingly, and when you do, make sure the colours are not too saturated. If there's no web-safe colour that will do, create a 1x1 pixel gif of that colour in photoshop and use that as a background image for the table cell/DIV.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of graphic text, used in moderation. However, avoid 'futuristic' typefaces. You can't go wrong with helvetica neue. Get hold of all the different weights. 12 point roman or bold look nice and clean.

HTML text: dont use serifed fonts (times/georgia). Look ok printed, but never look right on screen. Verdana or tahoma are the best. Avoid arial/helvetica on screen. Specify font size IN PIXELS! 10 or 11 pixels look best. There's nothing worse for mac users than looking at a site with fonts specified as 8 point (the windows 96dpi size). Totally unreadable.

Don't be afraid of white/empty space. Nothing worse than trying to cram too much into a space. If you're stuck with an empty homepage, try a big bit of classy photography, like sapient.com (see links below). However, photography is hard to come by and can be expensive. Start with photodisc.com, or there are some free stock libraries about.

The best place to start is by looking at some good sites. Not plagarism, but inspiration. Check my links:

favourites:

www.sapient.com
www.netymology.com - very VERY nice. Check the flash news ticker in the top right
www.k10k.net - to keep up with what's fresh in the web design world
www.bbc.co.uk
www.aliveis.com - nice consumer/fun site, made by preloaded (very talented, look at preloaded.co.uk)

some of my stuff:

http://212.19.82.70/misc/inkonew
http://212.19.82.70/misc/inkonew/sands.asp
www.pace.co.uk

[Synotic]

I'll see if I can respond to each individual thing, soon.. but right now I am kind of busy :/ I am working on a calendar but I haven't started the page, note that it's a page, not a site. There are a bunch of sections, and each section is like 1 or 2 sentences.. So making several pages would be overkill. Now I think I may have broken 2 rules with this... What do you think?

http://homepage.mac.com/phobosdownloads/Calendar/

One is the thick black lines thing... And the other is using arial. I really think Arial worked here, it's used in August and the week names. While the main text is in Geneva. I'll be using CSS to make it pixels since some browsers seem to screw it up. Should I change this? Also, I am planning to make another thread, but is there a good script that will update my Calendar for me? With a web interface? That will let me use my template? Kind of like those news update scripts, Greymatter, Newspro.. etc.. Thanks for all the help