Although lately I have hopped on the JQuery and Javascript bandwagon, I have to say that lately I have been blown away by the usability and functionality of Adobe Flex. Using Adobe Flex as our development platform, at Essence Designs we have created entire task management and content management systems. These Rich Internet Applications have the ability to run as smoothly as desktop applications and seamlessly integrate with one another. Imagine having one place to go where you can manage all aspects of your business, update multiple areas of your website and be able to send one of your employees a message to begin working on a project. Thanks to Adobe and their development team, we now have an affordable way to offer these services to our clients. We will be posting more information about Adobe Flex in the coming weeks. For now you can find out more about what we offer at the Essence Designs website. You could also head over to Adobe’s Flex Development Center to get an idea of what Rich Internet Applications can do for you.
Graphic Designer VS Client
We have been watching this video religiously around the office at Essence Designs. I can’t even begin to tell you how many conversations we have had with clients that go very similarly to what was portrayed in this underground YouTube masterpiece. I am still amazed every time one of my website comps gets completely redesigned by my clients thirteen year old nephew who apparently has a real knack for color theory. Anyone who has worked in this field for even a short amount of time has probably heard the line, “consider this job a foot in the door”. Unfortunately, my feet are happy exactly where they are and would really just like to get payed for their graphic design work (though I do most of my typing by hand). When was the last time you went to your doctors office to say, “I don’t really have a lot of money to pay for this colonoscopy” only to pull down your pants and follow up with, “but consider this a foot in the door”.
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Web Development for Designers
It is no secret that the world of digital art has encountered a drastic change in the last few years. As a designer, developer, SEO connoisseur and creative director of Essence Designs I have seen graphic design trends come and go. However, we are now entering a new phase where designers are not only held responsible to handle print jobs from start to finish but we must also have at least a basic understanding of the web development world. So where do we start? Having taken my fair share of website design classes I can tell you that designers are skipping the basics and jumping way to fast into CSS. This is why I have decided to post a share of tutorials and articles on this blog dedicated to helping designers make the transition into the world of website and multimedia design. It is only natural to want make the next beautiful CSS and JQuery driven site however, without first learning the basics, I can only wish you the best of luck and know that when I view the source of your website I will find a big pile of browser unfriendly rubbish. That all being said, lets start with the basics.
HTML (or hypertext mark up language) is the code that we use to speak to the browser.Think of HTML as a set of instructions for what you as a designer wish to be displayed on the screen. When you open up a new HTML file in Adobe Dreamweaver you will see a few tags that may not make much sense right this second. A tag in HTML is anything surrounded by angle brackets (< >). These tags tell the browser how the information wrapped inside of it is to be interpreted. The tags you first see when you open Dreamweaver are the header tags( <head> </head>). The closing header tag </head> signifies the end of the tag. Information after that tag will not be rendered by the browser as being associated with the head of your document. Think of the header of your HTML file as being the information at the title of an essay. It is used to signify descriptive information about your website or specific HTML page. Within your document header is your page title. The information in your title (anything between these tags <title></title>) is the information that is displayed at the top of the browser. If you visit http://www.essencedesigns.net you will find that the title of the page is Essence Designs | New York Advertising, Marketing, Web, SEO, Interactive, Flex. Use these tags to set up a basic description of your website or web page. You will also see a meta-tag in your header section. This is something that we will come back to later.
Where we will be spending most of our time is in the body section of your HTML file. The body of your file is located in between these two tags <body></body>. One of the best resources on the internet for learning about HTML tags is the W3 Schools website. It would be impossible for me to go through every HTML tag and relatively a waste of time considering W3 Schools has already done it for me. I highly suggest reading there section on HTML before we go any further. I also suggest visiting WebCreme.com to get a little inspiration. The next article I post will assume that you have studied a few HTML tags and played around with the tutorials on W3 schools. Feel free to scan through some of the sites that I have done over at EssenceDesigns.net as well.
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EssenceDesigns.net
At Essence Designs we have finally launched our new CSS, XHTML, JQuery driven website. In conjunction with our website we will be offering some exciting new services such as RIA development (or rich internet application development), search engine optimization and our new highly specialized internet marketing package. As always, we are dedicated to offering businesses of all sizes the benefits of custom website design, internet marketing, original graphic design and other interactive services. We continue our mission to always push ourselves creatively and to stay on top of the technological world.
In addition to our new site we have created the Essence blog. Here we will keep you up to date with our new website launches, explore the latest advances in new media, and open discussions to all things design. Consider this a place where graphic designers, developers, new or potential clients, and all those looking to explore the benefits of multimedia design can meet, interact and learn.
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New Projects and Website Launches
To follow up with the re-launch of our website at www.essencedesigns.net we have a few other projects we will begin launching. Within the coming week ActionServic Plumbing.com will go live. For Action Service we put together a nice branding, website design, internet marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) package for them. We all had a lot of fun working with everyone at Action Service and the overall project turned out great. We have also been doing some print work for TGI Fridays which has turned out very well. Keep on the look out for more updates on our work in the portfolio section of our website (which we have yet to completely update) as well as on our blog.