Web Designers: How do you come up with ideas for layouts?

[Nocturnal]

I currently own and work on five sites. My car club's site, my personal site, a graffit site, and a site dedicated to the EG6 Honda hatchbacks.

How do you think up or find a new layout for your page? Mines are very simple done with tables and rarely any graphics.

If you can give me some input, it is really appreciated.

 

[SherEPunjab]

to me, its always about KISS, keep it simple stupid.

I like navigation on left, or top, or both. Body underneath, or to the right. Graphics, small, but vivid, and crisp. borders, frames, or any other devices to demarcate "spots" of the webpage. I use common sense, and design for left to right, top to bottom readers. I also surf the web a lot and see whats out there.

 

[ThePresence]

Here's what I do. I knock around a bunch of different ideas in graphic form. Usually takes me a while untill I come up with something I like. Then I create an image of what I think the page should roughly look like. I tweak up the image untill I'm happy with the result. Then I sit down and get to work on actually creating the page to look similiar to the image.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: ThePresence
Here's what I do. I knock around a bunch of different ideas in graphic form. Usually takes me a while untill I come up with something I like. Then I create an image of what I think the page should roughly look like. I tweak up the image untill I'm happy with the result. Then I sit down and get to work on actually creating the page to look similiar to the image.

true, never thought about that. im a newbie, and im just starting out. my pages look really plain. hehe. thanks for the comments.

 

[DrVos]

I usually try and get inspriation from other websites. Some suggestions are:
Pixelsurgeon
Cool Homepages

You might also want to look at a series of books called the "Web Design Index" which is a picture index of hundreds of websites.

 

[SherEPunjab]

Originally posted by: ThePresence
Here's what I do. I knock around a bunch of different ideas in graphic form. Usually takes me a while untill I come up with something I like. Then I create an image of what I think the page should roughly look like. I tweak up the image untill I'm happy with the result. Then I sit down and get to work on actually creating the page to look similiar to the image.

Oh you create a mockup...


duh.. that goes without saying for most web developers. didn't even think i had to mention that.

Do that first nocturnal.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Best.Thread.Evar.

 

[nagger]

I usually draw in paper what I want for a particular site.

Then I fire up Photoshop and apply the ideas on several different files.

After I got a template that I like, I measure up the page, fire up Homesite and create the code for the pages.

I also keep a good bookmark of really ugly pages like this one so I can compare them to my sites

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Originally posted by: nagger
I usually draw in paper what I want for a particular site.

Then I fire up Photoshop and apply the ideas on several different files.

After I got a template that I like, I measure up the page, fire up Homesite and create the code for the pages.

I also keep a good bookmark of really ugly pages like this one so I can compare them to my sites

From that site:
Call US at our Sunnyvale Offices now for a free QUOTE! Call 1-800-DIP-SH|T (we're getting this number changed VERY soon!! Darned phone company!)

HAHA

 

[jjones]

I do the same as what others mention. I always start by designing the home page in Corel (as opposed to PS) and for design ideas, they're from surfing the web combined with whatever I have in mind. A great place to check out web sites is coolhomepages.com.

 

[Kev]

i was looking at coolhomepages, and this is their top ranked one:

http://www.itcatmedia.com/

Damn that is insane

 

[rh71]

I second Coolhomepages.