3 replies to this topic

[recordlovelife]

Hi everyone.

First and foremost thank you ALL for the amazing advice up til the present.

I have been building up chops of flash 8, photoshop 7, and illustrator CS for the last year and a half. To date, I have one album design under my belt, as well of multiple t-shirt designs for the this band. (Roots of Rebellion). I also produced/engineered/mixed the album which is the job that actually pays the bills for me (kinda).

This summer I started my own company, Pioneer Artist Development, which will be a multimedia one stop shop for recording artists and others. Since my current occupation is in recording, I plan on making sure I really master the art of graphic/web design before I put my name out there and say "Yes, I'm comfindent my work is worth paying for".

++++I REALLY WANT TO GET EVERYONE'S INPUT, BIG OR SMALL. IN LIFE, WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM EVERYONE!! +++++


=========end intro, start actually talking I need advice with!===================


The first thing I am trying to do, is design a page for myself, to advertise all the artists I've been working with and all the work I've done for 'em. Beside hating every page 2 hours after I draft a concept (which is a whole 'nother post!), I find I keep having a problem descerning when to use which of the 3 programs for design. My biggest problem is work flow, I never know how to go about my "great ideas".

I find using examples helps, cuz I can never explain myself well (just ask FunkySoul).


1. Example 1 - check this one out. It's pretty basic. If you were the designer, which parts of the site would you have made in which program.

2. Example 2 - i know this site has made this message board before. But just look at the elements of the opening intro. Now Im no idiot, I understand the amount of time that was spent studying and practicing, not to mention a great eye for detail and all of that. But if you had to guess, what was his work flow for the design. I'm really into the "grunge/dirt" look, but I feel I can only really achieve it withing PS, but the artwork clearly is vector. So is the general understanding that he drew the stuff in illustrator, imported it to PS to grunge it up and ad lighting fx / textures, and then imported it to Flash?

3. Now that flash 8 has those filters like drop shadow and glow that Illustrator has, do you normally add the filter in illustrator or flash? Is there a reason why it would be better to do either one?


Lastly, any other advice you have about workflow, please I need it....need it like our gov't needs a clue.


Im not expecting anyone to answer all of these, so please just comment on anything you feel you'd like. I hope I didn't come off sounding like an idiot, but I tried to leave out alot of crap that wasn't nessicary. Pretty much, I just want to hear an overview of your work flow for designing a client a site from top to bottom, and if you answer any of my questions in the process....awesome.

So once again, please IF YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE ON WORK FLOW, please post.



THANK YOU SO MUCH
...sincerely indebted to the pixel2life community

::recordlovelife

[N4Z.]

They are both EXCELLENT Designs my friend! One problem with the first one.. Loads REAL Slow.. I dont know if its just me.. But its real slow for me.. But it is a great design..

If the page loads for anyone else you might want to think about anew host http://synitex.com/

Very nice designs though!

Good work


First layout i would have designed soly in CS2.. BEcause you can get some great web effects..

Second one either Flash 8 or Swish... But I would havemaybe done the design work in Photoshop and flash in Flash 8.

Edited by Synitex, 05 August 2006 - 10:57 AM.

[cng]

I'm not going to comment on those particular sites but how I make my websites in general. If I have a lot of content, I would like to use Dreamweaver more. I would use Flash buttons, Flash intros and maybe Flash banners. However, for sites that are suppose to be more visual-oriented, I would go full Flash as I can make awesome transitions.

I do not have Photoshop, didnt think it was worth it since I'm quite happy with Fireworks and its compatibilty with Flash and web content.

About workflow, do not worry about how the whole thing goes together but rather one piece at a time. Dont settle for less than perfect on the piece and a lot of perfect pieces coming together will eventually help you build confidence in your work and how it will become. Things will shape up. When doing things one at the time, you also have to think about how these pieces fit together and think of all possible ways for them to flow or fit better. I'm not really a person to be suggesting much though because I'm inexperienced as well.

About vectors, this may sound really stupid but I've found that Flash is an awesome drawing program as well. I can use the line and fill tool to create many vector images so well. Also, tracing is just so easy too. About the grunges, its all about the layering and blending, my friend. I find using screen, overlay, and some other blending options in Flash to be quite usefull when creating these grunge looks. I'm not good at explaining so I hope you know what I mean after you experiment a little or someone else can elaborate.

Edited by cng, 07 August 2006 - 10:14 AM.

[funkysoul]

Let's make it short.

1. I start with a layout in photoshop
2. I decide what can be done solely in Flash and what not
3. I put all my sliced images into flash.
4. I start putting them together
5. my favourite part, coding, coding, coding