Dec 15, 2014

anyone have experience with muse or edge reflow? or any other website design/development apps? i work mostly in print design but the writings on the wall and i need to really get cracking on learning web design. muse is easy, im pretty handy with it, but on the downside its really basic and there's no way to create responsive websites with it. It has an option to create 3 separate layouts (tablet, mobile, desktop) but it's not the same. reflow looks really interesting but I have 0 experience with coding so it's gonna take a lot of learning to get to where i need to be with it so that i can really take full advantage of all the programs. I hate coding so much and took one course in using dreamweaver, then i discovered muse and never looked back, but its just not cutting the mustard anymore.

Anyone use any of these programs or have any insight in web design?

 

Dec 15, 2014

oh and for anyone who doesn't know what responsive design is, just drag the size of your browser bigger and smaller on this page

 

Dec 15, 2014

Are you a designer? always seen you in the graphics threads and such on SL way back when.

and yeah i really need to try dreamweaver again, (well really it could be done in note pad too but whatever) but yeah coding by hand is so confusing and frustrating to me, but i really dont see a [i dont want to say lazy way out, because when it comes to my profession its one of the few things i actually try at] way around learning it. I mean I can get by decently and have sold a few sites to a few clients using Muse, but like I said it's all so stagnant and un-dynamic, and not only is it not as easy to sell to customers as a design standpoint (because it doesnt look as good) but its less efficient and a lot less welcoming. It's become such a standard now that everything is getting more and more sleek and fluid and dynamic.

Print design is dying too, i mean obviously it's still huge and will never go away, but the heaviest chunk of design work now is definitely producing websites and online elements, and it's worrying to me that i dont even know what css means.

 

Dec 15, 2014

http://getskeleton.com

The most basic code for building responsive. Seems like a great place to start.

 

Dec 15, 2014

yeah s----s rough b i got a full time design gig right now and it pays pretty d--- decent, especially considering the fact that im 20 and went straight to college for 2 years out of highschool and straight into the workforce from there, but idk its not satisfying. gotta get on that web design front so i can do what i need to do to get into my own business. hard to find time after 8 hours of work a day but i got a few weeks off coming up for xmas so i guess ill get into W3 or something in my time off. at least to the point that i can make nice looking sites that people will want to pay for, then later down the line i can actually start a business and hire a developer so i can just worry about design

 

Dec 15, 2014

yeah, i know a few people who just basically edit joomlah templates. still tho id like to be at the point where if a client asks for anything at all I can just supply it to them, that's the raddest s--- when people go around to other people/places looking for something and they say they dont know how to do it and you're just confident enough in what you know to say yeah i can get that done. even if you dont know exactly how you're gonna do it, you know ways to find out and it isnt a big thing knahmean. im at that point with photoshop and a lot of print design stuff, but i wanna be there with web so if someone wants a dope af website with like all sorts of crazy s--- i can just say yea b, no problem.

get there one day

 

Dec 15, 2014

anyway, as it relates to the thread, this is just the tightest s--- ever

 

Dec 15, 2014

never say print is dead

one day i see everyone being able to code by hand
people will build their own applications, customized for their specific needs

having used dreamweaver extensively, i'd say the results are usually nice but woudln't recommend it to someone trying to learn a language
i believe a lot of people who try it are under the impression it's gonna be like the photoshop of web design, and you can just click, drag, copy and paste your site together

lel i wish it was like that
good luck with everything bro

 

Dec 15, 2014

naw u kno what im sayin though, i mean people will always need print materials, signs, ads, etc, but the industry is definitely going more and more towards digital, and websites are obviously HUGE in that area.

i knew from the jump dreamweaver wasn't WYSIWYG click and drag, prolly why it aggravated me so much. thats why when muse came along and offered a way to make completely custom websites from scratch with mobile and tablet versions without having to write a single line of code I was psyched, but it's just not dynamic enough and that's the way websites are going, static just doesn't do the job any more. I mean sure muse has things like lightboxes and you can technically make a "responsive" website, in that everything can be laid out as a percentage based on browser size rather than str8 up pixels, but the lack of layout shifting and breakpoints really doesn't help and just f---s s--- up.

how long you been doing web design? would you call yourself a designer or a developer?



jus copped a couple goat domains for a few years thegfx.ca and thegraphics.ca, s--- already appraised at a lot more than i paid for em. finna try and hop on this web tip when im off on xmas break, get s--- rollin. id buy theg.fx if i could but i cant find .fx domains for sale

 

Dec 15, 2014

i'd definitely call myself a designer. developers developers developers developers get all the b------s tho

i've been using photoshop since cs2 on jaguar, so over 10 years d---

 

Dec 15, 2014

since PS7 on windows xp here

 

Dec 15, 2014

there's probably still xp code in w10

 

Dec 15, 2014

yeah the whole thing is a mess, border is off too

i'll get it worked out
shame no one in the room had a better camera

 

Dec 15, 2014

I use Photoshop for product design almost exclusively. Never really experimented with Muse, although after reading your post I might give it a try. I know Sketch is becoming popular as well (http://bohemiancoding.com/sketch).

Coding-wise, I can take my Photoshop mockups and manual code them with HTML/CSS, but I'm definitely not a developer. I might use Bootstrap (http://getbootstrap.com/) to get a headstart and keep responsiveness. Other times I'll just edit a current Wordpress theme to save time. Dreamweaver sucks. You'll need to (at least) learn and know HTML/CSS to get a web design job. I rely on other developers to actually code 95% of the time.

For learning web/app design, the only thing you can do to learn/improve is copy and practice. Check out sites like http://dribbble.com, http://cssline.com, and http://inspired-ui.com for examples of great work. Literally copy certain elements or entire designs and learn what works and what doesn't. If you don't have any real work, find a website or app and redesign it. Take into consideration every screen and product flow. Put yourself in the mind of the user. Keep it simple. Practice.

What's your goal in learning web/app design? If your goal is to get a product UI/UX design job, your online portfolio needs to stand out. Simply include a short about paragraph and 3 - 4 recent projects. These projects can be flat JPGs of mockups, nothing needs to even be real.

There are plenty of jobs that allow you to stick mostly to Photoshop. Don't worry about advanced programs for coding unless your job demands it. Learn HTML/CSS.

 

Dec 15, 2014

awesome my dude, thanks. I work mostly in photoshop (and illustrator/indesign) at my current job, im the creative director (and only graphic designer) at a real estate agency and they have a pre-existing contract from before I came on board for their website, so that's all taken care of, so I usually stick to print design, and that's cool for now but I want to eventually expand and leave here to get my own stuff going, and I figure the quickest way to get noticed is to have kickass websites in your portfolio. def gonna have to learn some of dat dere HTML.


also, don't know if this is of any interest of you but photoshop now has a generate feature, it exports each layer as its own file. you put the extension in the layer name (png jpg etc) and it saves it as that file, then packages them together so you can actually use your mockup as a working design.

 

Dec 16, 2014

Reflow is designed to help creatives work towards the holy grail of current web design standards: responsive design. I will suggest some tools where you comfort to design responsive web design and its absolute cost free.