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on HTML |
W3 Consortium W3C creates HTML standards and so this should be your first source of information on HTML and future developments. Although you might find it a bit difficult to comprehend, because standards are written for professionals (software developers) and computer jargon is used extensively. Also it must be noted that browser-specific implementations (e.g. Netscape Navigator) sometimes add extra features, not discussed at W3C and sometimes fall short of implementing W3C recommendations.
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Browser Specific HTML Browsers sometimes extend over the HTML standard or sometimes they do not implement HTML standard correctly. It is extremely important to know how HTML implementations differ from browser to browser if you want to create a page that looks best on every browser. Because a staggering majority of users have either Netscape or Microsoft browser, you do not need to know specifics of less popular browsers.
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Other resources on HTML This section lists different miscellaneous resources on HTML. These are not miscellaneous because they are not very helpful, but these are very difficult to put into a particular sub-category. Also note, that some of the URLs given are of a specific document, you might find it worthwhile to look what the main pages of such links have to offer. A very good WWW FAQ at http://www.boutell.com/faq/.Yet another HTML 3.2 specification at www.htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/ Style Guide at Yale University An MBA course in web design, by the look of it. It's very serious and very "talky", i.e. does not provide any information that you will find particularly useful. Although it might be my first impression, I fell asleep after the first chapter. Still, take a look. Beginner guide to HTML at www.sandia.gov I don't think you need it, because it is extremely basic and it is now quite old. But there are more resources at Sandia, so you might just want to poke around their site. Introduction to SGML at www.sil.org/sgml/ A book on HTML at www.utoronto.ca Also very basic, this is a shadow of a real published book. It offers too little to get excited, although it is clear and concise. An HTML primer at NCSA Site Creators of Mosaic browser, on which Netscape and Explorer were later based, this site offers a lot of resources on technical aspects of web design. The HTML primer is not extremely useful, but still, it is a good introduction to HTML tags. A guide on HTML style atwww.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/cgh/ One of those "do that" and "don't do that" guides. A lot of it is quite useless, because it's just common sense, what's left is arguable and finally there are couple of things you might find interesting. The guide also provides links to other resources, which are mostly other style guides with more dos and donts. A barebone guide to HTML3.2 at werbach.com/barebones A quick list of HTML attributes. It is not as useful as HTMLib (read a review in Software Review section), perhaps, but what makes it different is that there are many multi-lingual versions of the document. But overall, nothing special. Although there are some good links. A home of HTMLib, A Help Index of all HTML tags at www.htmlib.demon.co.uk HTMLib is a windows help file that describes and indexes HTML tags (currently up to HTML 3.2). This program received both 5 star and Pure Gold awards from WebIGN Software Review, and when you download you will know why. The latest news I have is that there will be a new web-based HTMLib, but check directly at the HTMLib site A very good FAQ with handy tips at www.htmlhelp.com | ||||||
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RFCs RFC stands for Request For Comment. And it is basically a standard on some specifications. There are many RFCs that deal with technological side of web design. Most of them are very technical and will not be useful to an ordinary designer. However, there are times when you might find it wise to consult an RFC. There are many RFC sites (sites that contain RFCs, obviously. these are usually FTP sites), ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc is one of them.
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on web design |
Sites of interest to web designers There are several good pages that deal with web design in general. These are mostly web sites of web design magazines or are web based design magazines. These sites are very, very informative and you will be surprised how much information they give away for free. These sites are also good to keep informed of major Net developments. The main problem is that these pages usually offer separate articles, not as much connected into some logical sequence and they do expect you to be a designer. If you are a beginner, you might find it difficult to understand the articles on offer. www.webdeveloper.comWeb Developer Magazine site. It has a lot of goodies to keep you interested. Check its JavaScript tutorial. www.webtechniques.com Web Techniques magazine site. Web Techniques is somewhat more technical and deals with Java, CGI and other new technological developments. www.webreview.com Published in association with the Web Techniques magazine, this is probably the site you should be looking at when you start seriously designing pages. It has a lot to offer and it is friendly. Now, it's a little bit like webIGN for advanced designers. www.stars.com "HTML design"-oriented site. Offers news and articles. Last time I've visited it, it had a very annoying design, and I was unable to find anything particularly good. Anyway, take a look, you might find something useful here. Index dot HTML Not terribly useful, at first it seems it has a lot to offer, but articles lack depth. Also it is rather peculiarly designed, so you might find it hard to navigate through the site. Microsoft Sitebuilder site Well, I know, Microsoft can buy us all and have enough money left to build a starship to extend their marketing techniques to sell their new OS to aliens out there. But I have to say, I can never find anything on Microsoft site. It is a complete and utter chaos, and I always leave in frustration. If you were able to find a page that deals with Browser extensions of IE3 or IE4, can you please tell me? Thanks, Bill. Oh, sorry for this small overture, back to Sitebuilder. It probably has a lot to offer, and it is all free if you display their banner. But once again, you will break your neck trying to find anything. HTML Writers Guild HTML Writing Guild? What on Earth do you need it for? Well, basically it is to promote professionalism, so to say. Although everyone could become a member (go figure). It has a lot of useful links and comments, so it is definitely worth a peek. Netscape Navigator Resources Page Netscape has surprisingly many free resources on offer. There are many tutorials, full-length books on JavaScript, HTML and Dynamic HTML (and more) both in HTML and PDF (Acrobat) formats. Still, it took me a lot of time to find the page... why do they hide these? Anyway, technical documentation rarely gets better and less expensive. You will have to spend some time getting used to its navigation. |
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on art of design |
Art design sites Web Design is not only HTML tags. The main part is still design. You can even design if you don't know HTML (if you use WYSIWYG HTML editor) and your pages can still look great. But if you cannot actually "design", there is nothing here to help you. Go out there and look how many ugly pages are there on the Internet... I've seen a lot. But you don't have to be a great artist to be able to design pages. There are tools that make your life easier. These tools will be listed later, but for now pages that are of general interest to a designer. Computer Arts MagazineThe best magazine I am aware of on art design (well, actually the ONLY magazine I am aware of on art design). It is not primarily concerned with web design, but there is a lot of useful info on web design. I highly recommend you to read the magazine. Atlas Magazine Online magazine. Photography, digital arts and bunch of other stuff. Nice. Head Space Cool, underground-ish design. Presumably a very big site, but I was not able to find anything useful, probably you will have to hang around for a bit longer. Creating graphics for the Web Guides to MouseOver, GIF vs JPG, etc. Not very deep or useful. A photoshop tricks page had only one trick about switching off the "Save Thumbnail" option. Yeah. Right. | |
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Font and Image Libraries
A designer needs to have something to work with. Rarely nowadays you see a page without graphics. You don't need to create your own images, you can use ready-made ones. Actually, most professional designers do not use their own images, they simply alter ready-made ones. These are higher quality than you will be able to get scanning images yourself... but I have to disappoint you, images are expensive. Same goes with fonts. Most fonts are not free and you have to buy them. | ||
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Art Design Tools Basically, you will need to have a good image manipulation software, a vector-graphics software and probably a 3D design software. There are several options on offer, and most of them are really expensive. You might be able to find cheaper alternatives to these industry-standard programs, but you will lose power and flexibility by opting for a cheaper choice. Image Manipulation SoftwareAdobe PhotoShop 4 Web designer's favorite tool. Most images on the web are created using PhotoShop. It is quite expensive, but believe me, it is worth having. You might want to shop around for an older second-hand version of PhotoShop (version 3 is also extremely powerful) or you might start giving your employer (or college) a hard time until they buy it for you [never works]. As with all other design software in this section you will need to buy a book on it to be able to use it, so add extra 40$ to the price tag. Oh, Adobe also is the only company I know that makes a user-friendly WYSIWYG HTML editor, called PageMill (currently version 2). I hated it. Macromedia xRes 3 An alternative to Adobe PhotoShop. Not as popular but by the look of it just as powerful. The biggest advantage over the PhotoShop is that xRes enables you to edit very high-resolution images quite easily. xRes 3 is quite expensive, although xRes 2 was given away with an October issue of Computer Arts Magazine (www.computerarts.co.uk) together with full PDF documentation. Fractal Design Painter 5 Another popular package from Meta Creations. It costs £351 and it is a bit different from both xRes and PhotoShop. I personally used Painter 3 and found it better in some aspects than PhotoShop. Meta Creations also created a Fractal Design Poser (version 2 is the latest), a program that helps you create anatomically correct people (ouch, I know it sounds strange, but I have no idea how to describe it in one line). Ironically, full Poser 1 was given away with December issue of Computer Arts. Vector-graphics software Adobe Illustrator 7.0 If you actually used any image manipulation programs, you might've noticed that it is a pain in the [censored] to actually draw a picture. Vector based software, such as Illustrator will cure the problem. Most designers create their art using a vector-based software and will then import the result into image-manipulation program, because vector images usually look ugly. If you decide to buy both Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator, you might consider buying an integrated pack, called Adobe Graphics Collection. Macromedia Freehand 7 Now... back to Macromedia. It also (surprise!) makes a vector-based software. It is also very similar to Illustrator and that's all I can say, because I never used both of them (well, I tried Freehand once, but I didn't get along with it). Corel Draw 8 Probably a pioneer of vector-based software. Corel is very powerful and the new versions tend to have a lot thrown in. And I mean A LOT. CDs packed with fonts, clipart, images and objects. Corel definitely believes that more means better. Corel Draw is a suite of programs and these include Corel Photo Paint 8, an image manipulation program (!), 3D design tools (renderer and object creator), multimedia presentation tools and a whole lot more. Most of the stuff you won't use anyway, so don't go for "everything in one big box". New, eighth version is just out and the main key feature is the "revolutionary new flat-look interface"... now, that won't buy my vote. Still, a good source of TTFs and there are some very cheap deals to buy early versions. 3D Graphics 3D Studio Max version 2 One of the best and well known 3D modeling/render/animation programs, 3D Studio. I had experience using 3D Studio 4 and I've seen 3D Studio Max in action. These are very powerful programs, but you will have to practice a lot. Max has a friendly interface and it's Windows-based software. Studio 4 is an older one and runs under DOS. 3D Studio is made by Autodesk, so you might check their main page, www.autodesk.com. Needless to say, very expensive and very difficult to find 2nd-hand copies. Lightwave 5.5 An alternative to 3D Studio. The last I've seen of Lightwave was version 3 and I did not like it as much as 3D Studio (Lightwave was originally created for Amiga platforms), but this is just a personal preference. Lightwave is also very expensive and very powerful. SoftImage 3.7 Just posted here for completeness, I guess. SoftImage is probably the best your money can buy. Just to give you an example, Industrial Light & Magic used it to make Jurassic Park. Still, it might be cool just to hang around their site, huh? Ray Dream Studio 5 An offering from Meta Creations. It claims it is easy to use and not as expensive as the competition. I have never heard of it until couple of months ago, so I cannot comment. Oh, completely forgot, a 3D Renderer in Corel Draw is based on Ray Dream Studio. Do you get this claustrophobic feeling? Soft F/X 4.1 / Soft F/X Pro Another 3D package that claims to be faster than most its competitors. It is not as complex and powerful as its more expensive counterparts (F/X 4.1 costs £120 (200$) and FX Pro costs £369 ($500)). There are more 3D design software, notably Caligari TrueSpace 3 and Macromedia Extreme 3D, if you consider buying a 3D Rendering package, you should seek advice from specialised forums or magazines. Miscellaneous tools Adobe Acrobat & Adobe Acrobat Reader A very popular software to create electronic versions of manuals. Many, many, many companies use Acrobat to create and distribute PDF files. If you're serious about design, get yourself a reader, which is free, so you can actually see these PDFs. (Oh, if you don't want to spend time downloading it, you might consider buying a computer magazine, most of them have Acrobat Reader on monthly CDs). Go for version 3, which is the latest. Microsoft Word 97 Microsoft Word 97 has some rudimentary HTML design facilities and it is good for writing and spell-checking your documents. It is also a part of standard MS Office. |
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share- ware and soft- ware links |
Freeware and Shareware collections You do not have to spend a fortune on all those big flashy boxes. You can easily find many features in shareware or even freeware. Freeware is free and shareware you can use only for a limited period before registering (although shareware programs usually have some functions disabled, to make sure you register). There are many sites that offer shareware and freeware collections. There is a good FTP (file-transfer-protocol) site at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com. But there are also some very good www sites. These are listed below. www.shareware.comThis is my long-time favorite source of shareware and freebies. A very good search function and very intuitive design. Also it has proven to be very reliable. I know, there are many similar sites, but I just found out about this one first and it kind of stuck to me. Oh, it actually rates ftp download sites for reliability. Other freeware and shareware sites www.filez.com www.filemine.com www.hotfiles.com www.freewarenow.com www.winsite.com www.download.com www.tucows.com Personally, I don't like this site. It has bad interface, bad design and not as many titles to offer as other sites. Still, you will be able to find some rare items here. FTP File Search |
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Real World Design |
Examples of Funky design Well, if you are only a beginner, you definitely have to know what is hip in designWorld. These links provide some ideas. The hippest thing at the moment is minimalistic approach, a lot of distortion and an alternative-ish feel to the site. I will try to do my best to provide links to new sites as often as I can. Computer Arts is a good examples of today's hip design, and although it is becoming a bit over-used, it is still very much sought after. BMW HomepageWhat? BMW Homepage? No really, it looks rather nice. An example of how corporate design should look. Modern and stylish. Microsoft should think about employing the designers responsible. C&A Homepage C&A is a home of cheap clothing. Someone told me that C&A stands for Cheap and Attractive. Although it doesn't matter to you as a designer (unless you want to design clothes for them). The page is still quite trendy. BT Campus Site Cool, funky, modern design for a big (but not too big for Microsoft) telecom. Students oriented. Well, it's Campus Site. Raise Magazine Homepage "Raise" is my favorite student magazine and it's free. The site actually sucks, it's a "work in progress", Shockwave only. Levi's Homepage The hippest jeans in the world. Levi's changed its strategy couple of years ago and now appeals to trendy youth. Bravo. The page is as trendy as their ads. Prodigy Site Prodigy site. Need I say more? www.slate.com Microsoft's offering. A trendy news site. It is probably worth a visit just because of its contents, if you like that sort of things. d2 Design Homepage D2 Design is responsible for KLF (music group) CD sleeves design and for more. It's style is similar to Designer Republic (the guys who designed Wipeout 2097 box). Very hip. Liquidlight Very good design. Funky, cool, arty, etc. Two versions: Shockwave and Normal. Liquidlight is a high-profile multimedia design company. Worth a peek. Saksi Useless pages, if you're looking for information. But take a look simply for its design. Manga-like images and alternative look. Cool. The HIV Site Informative it might be, but the main thing of interest is the design of the site. Probably not as good as some other offerings, but definitely worth a look. | |
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Design that clearly sucks Well, this section should contain examples of awful web design. As it is always with ugly sites, there are so many of them, your brain does not even register them. My brain, anyway, is unable to think of any right now. But I have been browsing through web magazines and just noted some of the more ugly-looking pages and so... here we go. Oh, as it is always with Internet, things change constantly, so if you access a page in this section and all you see is that beautiful page, filled with professional designer touches, it must be that the design changed, not my personal vendetta. Hailsham CellarsAnother wine merchant. This one is straight from the Corel Draw. Notice the logo. It changed a bit after my first visit, but still mostly sucks. Nation Field Archery Society Homepage Well, it's probably not a professional-made page, so it's not fair to laugh about this one. Still, worth a look just to learn by someone else's mistakes. I've just been there after two months, and it still sucks. Cycling Touring Club If you're lucky you will see the original ugly design running along-side professionally designed pages. Here is my original comment: "Again, simple vertical layout and strange choice of colours. I hope these were not chosen on purpose. I wonder, am I getting meaner with age?" Psychiatry Online No, not a design company with the same name. |
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Promo- tion |
This section goes in hand with a section on Promotion in webIGN tutorial, so if you haven't read it, you might consider doing so. Search Engines Yahoo. Biggest directory listing. When submitting to Yahoo, you have to submit to their specific category. The best way to find a category is to search for a topic you would search for to find your page and then look at the categories Yahoo has. You can only choose two categories to list your site under, so choose carefully. Yahoo UK. UK Version of Yahoo. HotBot (Wired Magazine). Very big search engine. Lycos Infoseek Web Crawler There is a very annoying tradition with search engines to hide the Add URL option. Usually it is hidden in "help" pages, although why do you want help if you simply want to add your URL is really unknown to me. Never mind, this links transports you straight to Add URL page. | |||
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Information on Search Engines Search Engine Watch An ultimate source of information on search engines. Much of information is free of charge and there is a subscription fee for advanced information. I did not find articles particularly jargon-free, but if you've read webIGN promotion section, you should have no problems understanding it. Particular interest URLs: Discussion of META tags Search engine features Search engines explained Web Robots FAQ Web Robot is a program that travels through www space and indexes pages. Follow the link to find out how robots work, what are their limitations and how to keep robots off your page. Courtesy of nice guys at WebCrawler Search site. HotWired on META There are several resources at HotWired, you might want to try and check them out, most of them are beginner oriented and usually are not very intellectually demanding. You can find more information on META tags here. There is also a good explanation of how HotBot robot works, although I forgot the URL. Finally, you can try HotWired Teaching Tool, which is a collection of HTML design articles. | ||||
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Banner Programmes Linkexchange Probably the largest banner exchange site there is. It is quite good, although you would be considered an amateur if you used it on your site, so don't use it on corporate sites. There are some targeting facilities and good visit statistics, so it's not bad. | ||||
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Web Promoters Try this index at Yahoo WebSite Promote Submit-It Add It! You can submit to 20 or so search engines free of charge. Not bad. | ||||
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Sponsorship / Ads Yahoo directory of Advertising agencies on the Internet Mark Welch's guide to web ads. The best guide to web sponsorship and advertising. Straight to the point. Seems that Mark does not update the page as often as he did previously, so some of the information might be not up-to-date. | ||||
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Free home pages You don't need to buy space for your web page. You can use one of the free page providers. They will happily provide space for you if you let them advertise on your page. You might want to use a free page to dry-run your projects or to test popularity of your site. Index of providers of free pages at Yahoo Geocities Homepage One of the biggest home pages providers. Every home page has 3mb quota and there are ads running first time user accesses your homepage. The biggest disadvantage is that URL of your site will be very long and bulky. Another, as I found out myself recently, is that Geocities does not like pages that appear slightly illegal or if the pages do not fit their guidelines. If they don't like you, they delete you without any warning. Excellent service? Tripod Homepage Very similar to Geocities, but URL of your site is substantially shorter and easier to remember (e.g. members.tripod.com/~mypage). Web Hosting Everyone needs web hosting. But do not jump at the first company you find. The prices differ very substantially, so shop around. Also demand cgi-bin, telnet and ftp access. And remember, some companies charge you extra for large traffic. The links below will help you get started. ValueTech Binary Net | ||||
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Award sites Starting Point Award A directory listing that gives award to you at their discretion. I am not sure if you can submit your page specifically for award. Award It! That's the ultimate award site, if there is one. You fill in a form, choose which awards you want to try and win, click OK and then click OK 20 more times and that's it. Apart from this clicking and no on-spot descriptions of award sites, this is the best award site I've seen because it's FREE. The only problem might be that the choice of award sites is somewhat limited to home-brew sites. Surfer's choice This is a real award site. Just go there and it all becomes apparent. It is an award site. Can't say how good it is, though. (Oh, they have a big queue of sites waiting to be reviewed. When I visited it, it had a 27-day waiting list. Wow.) Award Sites A list of award sites. Offers quite a lot of sites, but sites are divided alphabetically, which is a really dumb thing to do. Nevertheless, if you have time... oh, e-mail your comments here. Majon Awards I didn't want to include any more award sites, because I became bored with them. But this one is a nut. You can actually download an image (a choice of 5, mostly ugly) and put it on your page yourself, without anyone reviewing your page! Award yourself, yeah! Crazy. Well, that's it. The end of the resources page. I hope you find some useful links here. We will add more links and probably new sections in the future. And if you found a link that does not work, please tell us. |
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©1997 repfect Drug design studio. All Rights Reserved. |
