Learn To Become a Better Visual Web Designer

[cooldiponline]

wow.. you made a very valid point (@6:50).. focus on becoming more of a visual web designer... and then later on you can focus on css/html and all that.. That its my own experience tells me how equally important a design is along with the site functionality... working with clients I've figured out that in the end no matter how powerful your site might be if your site-design sucks they tend to give a shit about your inner functionality.... thanks!

[aerozg]

Nice tutorial. I have been a designer for almost 10 years now, and had a lot of fun, no big success though. I am feeling my initial enthusiasm is slowly wearing off. The hardest part i have not achieved yet is this visual appeal, visual order and hierarchy, and colorful, playful and clever visual ideas and concepts. Something is always missing. I still feel i would need a lot of time to piece together a sleek and appealing design, be it a website, a flash animation or a graphic design.

[aerozg]

I don't think i will ever get there, maybe only to become average or something. It is really hard for me, i get a good idea in my mind but then it looks completely different in PSD. When working on a new design, i quickly come to a point where i don't know what to do anymore, no refinement ideas left in my head I think i may be tired of it all, but i know i will always love well designed and balanced websites, posters, cd or book covers, funiture, architecture etc...

[papapuchuchu]

Thank you!

[nonelson]

wow that wedding website used an example in the beginning that is "visually appealing" is awful!

[wwl777]

7:03 .. Good advise. The thing is there is so much to learn. For example I still have to learn JQuery and JS, but maybe it's better to first focus on design skills?

[deeinkc]

Just discovered your videos and am loving them all!! Thanks for sharing all of your knowledge so freely. As a wannabe designer, I'm loving the info! ;-)

[enfinite5]

I was looking at your portfolio, do you use wordpress for all your sites?

[mlwebco]

@enfinite5 Most of my sites use wordpress but not built with wordpress entirely. Meaning, my site is separate from wordpress, but the "blog" portion of my site(s) are built with wordpress but designed exactly like the rest of my site. This gives the appearance that it's all one structure (i.e. wordpress), but its actually just pieced together. :)

[th3computeradmin]

Love this video! ive commented on a few now lol but all of them are so helpful!!!! Please keep it up!!!!

[Susipis3s]

I like all your videos, every video is actual for my. So thanks a lot for sharing your web designer/developer experience to us. Keep goin'. U best man!

[mlwebco]

@Susipis3s thanks for the feedback and kind words. Greatly appreciated.

[3250Warrior]

Wow another great video.every time I see another one of your video's I learn a new trick and little details that I can use and can help me out.. iam a new web designer who is just beging in this filed and these videos help alot thanks.

[mlwebco]

@3250Warrior thanks, glad you find my videos useful. Thanks for the feedback.

[rzuhler]

Thanks for this video. best web gallery is awesome! i didnt know that we should focus on graphic design first then focus on html css. I actually felt guilty for focusing on the art first. Html css thing seems so intimidating. It was really the website design that pulled me into making websites in the first place. Thanks for clearing it out.

[AndyDOHD1]

Great video, and very informative, as always....

[Voidic]

Great video.

Can you please do a video on color theory and selection?

[mlwebco]

Yes, color theory... good idea. Will add that to the list. ;) Thanks!

[ghanes14]

I was thinking that same thing earlier. I found a site that has glowing lines and found a tutorial on doing it in photoshop. Been playing with it all day, but haven't been able to do much worth saving yet.

Is there a way to do the glowing line effect in fireworks?

[ghanes14]

I get the feeling I someone influenced this video to the top of the pile LOL! I have been looking over the sites and was thinking before re-designing sitting down with paper and writing what I like front the sites, and "attempt" to picture it in my head. Then stress about how I'm going to do it afterwards.

You mention flash based, I was wonder how does SEO/Flash interact? Like, can search engines crawl the flash content, if not how do flash based sites manage SEO?

[mlwebco]

Flash sites can still rank well if they have enough inbound links coming into the site. Also, some flash sites can have HTML pages built into them that the SE's pick up.

[ghanes14]

Oh ok, gives me something else to think about then. I'm currently looking over the 1 page sites you gave me and writing down what I like from some and notes to go on. If I can figure out some Javascript I got a couple ideas wrote down towards a one page design.

Example, if you look at #22 in the list, the way he has his navigation where it slides open to display the content on the same page. I like that idea. ^_^.

[mlwebco]

Also take a look at this site...  wix . com they allow you to create free flash sites.

[ghanes14]

Seems like i've heard that before. On those site builder places, maybe it's just me but seems wrong to use them to build a web site using them for a web design business. If I can't build myself a site, how am I supposed to do it for others? Just seems wrong somehow lol.

[djmixmind]

Man I love your work !

I need to start doing more Photoshop to Html sites...

I work with Flash pretty much.

[mlwebco]

Hey, you can always do both. More of an arsenal in your bag of tricks. I always stuck with the HTML stuff because flash was too hard. There's always a need for flash experts though.

[djmixmind]

Yeah you are right, but sometimes I feel like I started backwards cause all my design friends went from Photoshop to Dreamweaver. I started Flash then everything else.

I feel left out :)

But all your videos have been helping!!!

Thanks!

[ghanes14]

Hey djmixmind, I do not know much about Flash myself. How hard/tricky is it to make a navigation system in flash where someone clicks or rolls over a certain area/button and has info fly in?

For example, I have a one page website design and wanted a services page, portfolio page and about information. Instead of having different pages, have the information show up in Flash when someone rolls/clicks said area.

I'm assuming that would be hard and tricky to learn...

[djmixmind]

Hey Ghanes Message me so we can talk in better detail.

[Conceptskatemedia]

Thanks very much, this video really opened my eyes!

[mlwebco]

Glad it helped.