Websites w/ Style
Resources for Web Design
If you find any good resources to add to our list please feel free to email us.
Cascading Style Sheets
- meyerweb.com (http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/)
- Eric Meyer's (One of the leading authorities on CSS and valid markup.)
personal website.
- glish.com (http://www.glish.com/css/)
- This site has some excellent resources and tutorials on CSS. Particularly
on layout. This is the personal site of Owen Briggs, another authority
on CSS.
- Westciv Complete CSS Guide (http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/)
- This is a very complete guide to everything you need to know to get started
with CSS. The online guide is free, but they do offer a downloadable version
for sale.
- CSS Online Validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)
- This page will check your style sheet to see if it uses valid CSS. Wonderful
tool.
- /CSS/ - A guide for the Unglued (http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/css/index.html)
- Excellent collection of cascading style sheet resources. This is not
an extensive everything there is, but a short list of the first places to
go to get questions about CSS answered.
- CSS:
An Introduction
- This is a short and simple introduction to using cascading style sheets
with Dreamweaver. It starts off showing you how to create a simple style
sheet from scratch, then shows how to incorporate that style sheet to a
website using Dreamweaver. Part of the Community MX site. (http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=EA87013F0E8B6A50)
Copyright
- Crash Course in Copyright (http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm)
- Brought to you by the University of Texas. Everything you wanted to know
about Copyright but were afraid to ask.
Cold Fusion
- Macromedia
ColdFusion Tutorial and Article Index (http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/tutorial_index.html)
- Macromedia's list of tutorials and articles. Great place to go when you
have a question.
- easycfm (http://www.easycfm.com/)
- Lots of great tutorials on using and abusing Cold Fusion.
- forta.com (http://www.forta.com/cf/)
- The personal site of the ColdFusion expert. Has some great resource links.
His book Macrodia ColdFusion Web Application Development Kit is the
bible of ColdFusion. It is very expensive, but if you want to start
building dynamic web sites in ColdFusion invest the money.
Color
- Color Schemer Online (http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html)
- Color Schemer allows you
to enter a RGB or HEX value to get a set of matching colors. Great way to work
on a color scheme. If you go to the main page there is a an excellent tutorial
on the use of color.
- Color Match Remix (http://colormixers.com/mixers/cmr/)
- This is my personal favorite online color mixer. It allows you to generate
up to 9 matching colors. You can use RGB or HEX values. Plus when you have
a good scheme you can export it as a Photoshop or Illustrator swatches
or a text file.
- Lighthouse International Effective Color Contrast (http://www.lighthouse.org/color_contrast.htm)
- This page gives basic guidelines for making effective color choices for
all viewers.
- Visibone Color Lab (http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/)
- Lots of material here on color.
- Color Matters (http://www.colormatters.com/)
- Ok, this site has everything you ever wanted to know about color and then
some.
- Graphic Design USA Annual Color Forecast 2004 (http://www.gdusa.com/feature/0307_index.php)
- Annual look at the direction of color in graphic design for 2004.
- Color Wheel Calculator
- An interactive color wheel. Uses RGB, HEX, or CMYK colors. You must give
your name and email before using and it requires the flash plugin to work. (http://www.sessions.edu/ilu/)
- More Crayons Web Smart Color Palettes (http://www.morecrayons.com/palettes/webSmart/slider.php#)
- The whole site is designed to aid web developers looking to break out from
the normal web safe palette. The link is straight to their web palettes page,
but if you click on their logo in the upper left you will find many more
resources on color on the web.
- Color Coordinator (http://www.colorcoordinator.com/colorCoordinator.php?lti=1)
- A different color scheme generator.
Dreamweaver
- Macromedia Dreamweaver Tutorial and Article Index (http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/tutorial_index.html)
- This is a listing of all the articles and tutorials written by Macromedia
dealing with Dreamweaver. Some of the articles are for older versions,
however, even these tutorials can offer some insight.
- cbtCafe Macromedia Dreamweaver Tutorials
- Wealth of excellent tutorials on all things Dreamweaver. You will need the
QuickTime player from Apple and the latest Flash Player from Macromedia
to view the tutorials.
- Swanilda's Studio
- Some interesting tutorials on using Dreamweaver and CSS to create some cool
menus.
- Community MX (http://www.communitymx.com/)
- Really cool site with tons of articles and tutorials on all of the Macromedia
Studio MX software. To see the Dreamweaver articles and tutorials and
roll of the Dreamweaver part of the horizontal menu at the top of the
page. You should see the icon change to the Dreamweaver symbol. Then
you can click on article, tutorial, or extension. Word of warning,
many of these tutorials and articles cost to view. However, there are
some really good free ones too.
- Dreamweaver FAQ.com (http://www.dwfaq.com/Tutorials/default.asp)
- Great site, tons of tutorials, about all aspects of Dreamweaver. All free. (http://swanilda.com/dreamweaver.html)(http://www.cbtcafe.com/dreamweaver/)
Fireworks
- Macromedia
Fireworks Tutorial and Article Index (http://www.macromedia.com/support/fireworks/tutorial_index.html)
- Macromedia's list of articles and tutorials on getting started in Fireworks.
- richiebee.ca (http://www.richiebee.ca/styles/index.htm)
- This site has tons of free, downloadable styles for Firewoks. Instructions
for downloading, installing and using are included.
- Ultraweaver (http://www.ultraweaver.com/tutorials/index.asp)
- Lots of really good tutorials. The newer ones that target Fireworks MX 2004
are video tutorials. There are older tutorials done for Fireworks 4
that are for the most part still good for Fireworks MX.
- cbt
Cafe Fireworks Tutorials (http://www.cbtcafe.com/fireworks/)
- Wealth of excellent tutorials on all things Fireworks. You will need the
QuickTime player from Apple and the latest Flash Player from Macromedia
to view the tutorials.
- Community MX Fireworks Tutorials
- Really cool site with tons of articles and tutorials on all of the Macromedia
Studio MX software. To see the Fireworks articles and tutorials and
roll of the Fireworks part of the horizontal menu at the top of the
page. You should see the icon change to the yellow Fireworks symbol.
Then you can click on article, tutorial, or extension. Word of warning,
many of these tutorials and articles cost to view. However, there are
some really good free ones too. (http://www.communitymx.com/)
Flash
- Macromedia Flash Tutorials
and Articles (http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/)
- This is the Macromedia Flash developer center. Lots of good stuff. Take
your time going through the Flash Learning Guides on the right-hand
side of the page.
- Flash Kit (http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml)
- You could spend hours here. Tutorials, articles, example Flash movies, links,
and other resources can all be found in great abundance. Plus it is
updated regularly. A must visit if you are interested in Flash.
- cbt Cafe (http://www.cbtcafe.com/flash/)
- Wealth of excellent tutorials on all things Flash. You will need the
QuickTime player from Apple and the latest Flash Player from Macromedia
to view the tutorials.
- Community MX Flash Tutorials (http://www.communitymx.com/)
- Really cool site with tons of articles and tutorials on all of the Macromedia
Studio MX software. To see the Flash articles and tutorials and roll
of the Flash part of the horizontal menu at the top of the page.
You should see the icon change to the red Flash symbol. Then
you can click on article, tutorial, or extension. Word of warning,
many of these tutorials and articles cost to view. However, there are
some really good free ones too.
- I Want My FlashTV (http://www.iwantmyflashtv.com/)
- Not really a tutorial site, just lots and lots of examples of what can be
done with Flash. Word of warning, some of the movies may include content
not ready for classroom viewing. Be Careful.
General Design
- Design & Publishing (http://www.graphic-design.com/)
- An eZine for Design, Typography and Graphic Design.
- Oakton Community College Graphic Design (http://servercc.oakton.edu/~jdmerced/)
- The website of the Graphic Design Department of Oakton Community College.
Lots of good stuff.
-
Graphic Design
- The Process of Redesigning a Logo (http://www.digital-web.com/articles/the_process_of_redesigning_a_logo/)
- This is an article from the Digital Web Magazine. It is a great look at
the process that goes into designing a logo for a company.
- Palm
Sized Press on Design (http://www.bsu.edu/ucs/article/0,1370,6264-1981-4292,00.html)
- A series of small booklets on different design topics. Topics include color,
layout, graphics, typography, and typeface. These are in pdf format so you
will need Adobe Reader.
Miscellaneous
- Web
Design Reference
- This collection of web design references is on the University of Minnesota
Duluth website. It is very extensive and has information on just about everything
you could imagine. I am going to try to go through their sites and eventually
add them into this page, but I figured I would link to the whole collection
until I had time to evaluate the individual references. (http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/)
Online Tools
- Web Page
Analyzer (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/)
- This page can give you lots of useful information about your web page.
Enter the URL of a page you want to test and it calculates page size, compostion,
and download time. It goes so far as to calculate the size of individual
elements on the page to help you track down problems.
- Text Place Generator (http://www.lipsum.com/)
- This page will generate fake text for you to hold a place on your web
page if your designing your pages without content.
- HTML Validator (http://validator.w3.org/)
- This page looks at your web page for valid HTML and XHTML. You must have
a correct doctype declared in the head of your page for this to work. A
List Apart has a good article on their website about declaring doctype,
Fix Your Site with the
Right Doctype.
- Wave 3
Accessability Validator
- This is an online tool that checks your pages for accessability. (http://www.wave.webaim.org/index.jsp)
Type/Fonts
- Spoono - CSS Tutorials - Typography (http://www.spoono.com/csst/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=4)
- Excellent tutorial on typography on the web. Lots of good examples.
Web Design
- Good Design Features (http://www.ratz.com/featuresgood.html)
- Nice list of things to keep in mind when designing web pages. The page
is put together by Robin Williams, who has written several excellent design
books. There is a companion list of Bad
Design Features(http://www.ratz.com/featuresbad.html).
- Online Web Design Tutorial - Vanderbilt University (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/create/tech/index.html)
- Web Design tutorial brought to you by Vanderbilt University (I bet you
figured that out by the title.) Very good, basic look at design from a web
page point of view. Good reference list at the end.
- WOW Web Designs (http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/)
- If looking at good design can make good designers, this is the place to
go. Lots of websites listed, by design and be designer.
- Web Page Design for Designers (http://www.wpdfd.com/)
- Some really good articles on web page design. Also the home of MINI fonts.
- Dmitry's Design Lab (http://www.webreference.com/dlab/)
- Lots of good articles and tutorials. Word of warning, some of these are
getting a little dated, but there is still good stuff here.
- Designing Attractive Web Pages (http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Design/Pages/)
- This article was written in 1999 for Web Developer's Virtual Library, so
it is getting rather dated. However, the information is still good. Worth
a read.
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