Web Design? Cascading Nonsense! ·
Sep 27, 2007Stylesheets? Sheesh! Listen, stylesheets were around way before the web and were primarily used for print and yes, they cascaded as well. Though InDesign, Illustrator and QuarkPress use this option in a smarter manner than the web does. These programs let the user set in the stylesheet what style should come before and after a style is applied. So let’s say you have an H1 tag, well if they truly cascaded, then when the H1 tag is closed, the following text would probably be an H2, so that text automatically gets applied a style -but without having to code it. But in the web, we have to add the H2 tag manually. Hence why the call it code. In print they actually cascade. A nice option is that if you have some unformatted paragraphs for printing as a plain text document you can simply add special sets of characters and have the software check for the sets and apply the style instead.
Now like InDesign, Dreamweaver let’s you see the site but I just wish Dreamweaver handled the design and layouts the same way InDesign or GoLive does.
Now here goes the one thing I’ve always said, but this will be the first time writing it down.
Use InDesign to layout your web page design. It’s metric calculations for design are incredibly accurate and it’s page functionality is easier to use than Photoshop, but you get the option of creating cascading stylesheets that, yes, you can export out as CSS.
Now you ask, how to you slice these images? Well, now you have the option of saving as a PDF, HI-RES! YES! (imagine you can now print 11×17 in hi-def) or you can save it out as a hi-res JPG or my favourite, take a screenshot and paste it into Photoshop then slice and dice away. Remember to use and keep your layers categorized for easy turning off and on.
In my professional opinion this is the future of web design for professionals of all capacity. See, web designers, well they tend to suck from a visual standpoint. They slap things together not really thinking about how the content itself my layout and Photoshop is just cumbersome.
Click here to view this web design done in InDesign
Here’s a site I did that shows a website’s homepage completely finished in InDesign. It was sent to Photoshop for the slices. I was able to layout the site much easier, and with thumbnails and not to mention like a book. So each navigational point had it’s own ‘chapter’. Not to mention I could overlay ads and more importantly I could reuse symbols that I created for web that I knew I needed such as buttons, radial buttons all in separate libraries.
It’s genius I know. One day Photoshop will catch up. Wait, no it won’t.
— Zeus ::)
