Designing your web site

Sketch out your site first based on what you like on other web sites.

Overview

Don't sit at your computer and start typing. Your site will probably look horrible. Sketch out your site on paper based on things you like from other sites.

Browse the Internet and find a web site whose style you like and copy it. You can play "Mr. Potato Head" and borrow bits and pieces from several sites.

Then...

Then... start with a blank piece of paper. Even if you have no artisic skills, sketch our your site first. And base it on things you like from other sites. Have a bunch of printouts from some sites you like spread out on the desk in front of you.

Reading

Building a Web Site From Scratch

I recommend Dreamweaver.  It's what everyone uses, so it's easy to get help with it.

Visit http://www.journeyed.com for great education software discounts. Yes, by taking this class you can qualify.

Homework

Resources

If you've bought Dreamweaver, you will want to go through the tutorials:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/documentation/dwmx_tutorials.html

Take your sketch and trace a table over it so that the different parts are contained in cells of the table.

(Creating a table in Dreamweaver http://faculty.ccbcmd.edu/~dtupper/TIMMS/week2/week2.htm)

DO NOT DRAG THE BORDERS OF THE CELLS LEFT AND RIGHT TO ADJUST. You will have an irrestible urge to do so. RESIST IT. Let the contents of the cells fill out the column widths. You will make any adjustments to column widths LAST.

A "Validation Service" is found at http://validator.w3.org/ to make sure your HTML is good.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp for stats on monitor resolution, OS, browser, and more.

http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sample.html shows what can be done with leading edge CSS.

Color Wheel

http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/

Outsourcing

Scriptlance and Elance

Hire freelance designers or programmers.