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Designer Talk: Beginner designer looking for feedback

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorthemelab
    • CommentTimeJul 2nd 2008
     
    Hi everyone,

    I'm starting to try to design CSS/XHTML templates. Keep in mind I'm a beginner, but here are 2 very simple templates I've made.

    http://leland.info/previews/first/
    http://leland.info/previews/second/

    Does anyone have any suggestions on how to advance my designing skills? As you can see, all I pretty much know how to do is gradients.

    Another question - do you think anyone would actually use these if I submit them to Open Designs? I know they're very basic, but maybe someone out there has some use for them.

    Thanks in advance,
    Leland (aka themelab)
    • CommentAuthordannisbet
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2008 edited by dannisbet on the 03rd July 2008 at 00:09:38 EDT
     
    Both look coded well and they validate, so I think your doing well. You might want to experiment more with your design though- maybe do some mock ups in Photoshop/GIMP and code those? I don't know much else, but I'd say your definitely on the right track!
  3.  
    I agree. great templates. but it seems that we are getting so many of those types of templates these days. Keep up the great work bakie
    • CommentAuthorXSQueen
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2008
     
    Nice templates Leland. Very nice. In another thread I was working with a couple of people where I did the artwork and they coded the Xhtml/CSS, if you are interested in a collab project. drop me a note ... I love playing in photoshop ;)Otherwise, those are a great start!!
    • CommentAuthorthemelab
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2008
     
    Thanks for the feedback everyone!

    XSQueen, I'm not that great at coding XHTML/CSS templates, and can only do basic slicing/coding. So not sure that would work out. sad

    Hopefully I can get better with practice. bigsmile
    • CommentAuthorXSQueen
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2008
     
    Anytime ;)
    •  
      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2008 edited by gnome on the 03rd July 2008 at 13:22:38 EDT
     
    Leland: Not everyone is very good at design (I'm bad at it, so I code mockups made by others). You can make the templates more useful to end-users by styling more tags, such as tables, definition lists, blockquotes, lists, headers, etc, so that any tag someone puts into the content section is styled with a consistent look and feel, matching the template.

    As an example of something done with gradients, almost all the images used in one of my templates, Liquid are gradients. Also, you can find public-domain-licensed photos, which can make good example header images, around which you can build an entire design. Andreas recently released some sample header images for his Andreas 01 Template, which should be a great start for images around which a design can be built.
    • CommentAuthorthemelab
    • CommentTimeJul 4th 2008
     
    Thanks for the feedback, gnome. I will try to add some more CSS code to make it more end-user-friendly.

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