 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: srattle
Date: 2008-03-06 00:57
Hi everyone,
not sure if this is really the place to put this, but I am designing a website for a new sextet that I'm forming, and as I don't really know anything about website design, I could really use some advice from someone who might know
What looks good, what works, what doesn't
Also, how does one set up a nice bio page, how do you add sound clips and a photo page in an elegant way.
thanks
http://sanosoke.deviantart.com/art/Berlin-Counterpoint-Website-78929305
|
|
|
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2008-03-06 01:12
Best thing to do is find sites you like and then talk with a web site designer/artist, along with having them show you their references. And have a few dollars in your pocket.
Or ...
Go to the library and start doing a lot of reading.
Either way it's going to cost you - time or money (sometimes time and money).
|
|
|
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2008-03-06 01:46
Depends on how much you want to spend, and how nice you want it to look.
If it's just a page for an individual or an ensemble (as opposed to an uber-destination), there are many template systems out there that can make a decent-looking page. The default views are not the most unique, but the more you know about how to tweak and reorganize things, the more distinctive you can make your page.
My site (www.mostlydifferent.com) currently runs on the Drupal template system (I'm still fleshing some things out). There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's very versatile and can make for a nice site. You could also look into Joomla!, WordPress, and others. Most of them, especially Drupal, have fairly active development communities and tons of add-ons.
Especially nice about most template systems is that there is very minimal knowledge of coding/scripting languages required to do most things you want.
If you don't mind putting out a bit of cash (and depending on how significant a presence you want), I'd highly recommend getting your own domain and paying for reliable hosting. There are plenty of good companies out there; I've had reasonably good experiences with Jaguar PC, at $8/month plus $12 or so per year for the domain, for a lot of bandwidth (210GB/month) and storage (17GB), plus lots of extras.
If you go that route, things you might look for:
- Lots of bandwidth
- Do they cut off the site if you go over the bandwidth cap, or do they charge extra (and how much?)
- Included MySQL Accounts (lots of em, if possible...)
- Fantastico (automatically installs scripts like Drupal, which is a HUGE headache-saver)
- In general, are features "at extra charge", "some included", or "unlimited"
Above all, though, please, for the sake of all that is holy, do not design the entire page in flash, and avoid animations. Your visitor wants to get to the information quickly and with minimum headache.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
|
|
|
Author: BandieSF
Date: 2008-03-06 02:50
Being a high school student taking a Webmastering class, perhaps I can be of assistance.
If you don't want to have to mess with HTML coding (which, if you're after a fairly detailed site, can get tedious), and you have a decent amount to spend, a good first step might be to get Adobe Dreamweaver, a web design application. It eases the hassles of manually typing up all of the HTML code yourself and makes it easier to do such things as add music to a page.
In terms of layout, there are a few general rules:
1. NEVER EVER EVER make body text center-aligned. This is very hard for viewers to read.
2. Use sans-serif fonts (arial, tahoma, verdana, etc.); they're easier on the eyes on a computer screen.
3. Avoid bright colors; they're also hard on the eyes.
4. When using images, import them into an image editor (along the lines of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks, but it doesn't have to be too sophisticated) and export them using "Export for Web" (or some similar command that allows you to preview the exported image and view the file size), selecting the best file format (.jpg or .gif) and quality that creates the smallest file while maintaining acceptable quality. Sizing down these images reduces loading time.
5. If you know the code (or are using Dreamweaver), use tables as much as you can to organize the page's content. This can be extremely useful when you have a banner heading, a menu, text, and an image to keep up with.
In terms of making it look nice, there are two main elements to a good page.
ALIGNMENT:
Good: body text isn't centered, but is right-aligned. Images are placed in an orderly fashion and do not break up sentences (the best case being text to the left and a picture to the right; a table is best for this).
Bad: body text is centered or left-aligned, making the text hard to read. Images are placed in the middle of the text and separate a sentence.
REPETITION (if making a multi-page website):
Good: the banner heading (if any) and menu are in the same location from page to page. The background and font, as well as colors and styles (underline, italics, etc.) are the same on all pages.
Bad: each page looks completely different. The menu may be missing on some pages. Colors change from page to page.
As stated by EEBaum, use Flash sparingly. The only instance would be if you're making an introduction page before a viewer sees the content of the site (but be sure to provide a button somewhere if viewers want to skip the intro). If you do use Flash for such things, be sure to publish and put the .swf file on your page, not the .fla file.
If you don't have the privilege to use such programs as Dreamweaver for your web designing (and therefore are manually typing out the code for the site, which I must warn you can take a long time), this might be a helpful site. And even if you are using Dreamweaver specifically, you do need to learn some HTML coding basics because Dreamweaver will occasionally screw up to code or forget to close a tag or whatnot.
-----
Current set-up:
Classical:
Strength 4 1/4 Legere Signature Series
Vandoren M13 Lyre
Jazz:
Strength 3 3/4 Legere Quebec
Pomarico Jazz*
Clarinets:
Buffet E11 Student Model
Buffet R13 Greenline
<http://operationhighschool.blogspot.com
|
|
|
|
|
Author: srattle
Date: 2008-03-06 03:05
thanks for your responses,
I love the suggestions, but I would love suggestions also on the design I am making, to which here is the link:
http://sanosoke.deviantart.com/art/Berlin-Counterpoint-Website-78929305
|
|
|
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2008-03-06 03:07
Please make comments, suggestions, etc. off-line now.
|
|
|
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
