My last post was about my foray into Photoshop effects. For my graphic design class I had to design a work that incorporated color, simple shapes, and no text or resemblance to any actual object. It was a tall order, and to be honest, pretty difficult to make something interesting. Enter the Photoshop effects. Using them, I was able to draw three vector circle layers, stroke them with lines of decreasing width, and apply an bevel and emboss (at least I think it was a bevel and emboss) effect to them. The fill was semi-transparent, and a gradient added to the bottom of the image to provide ground. If you are reading this, thank you for being patient. You will see my designs get more interesting (hopefully), and then you can say, “hey, I knew that guy when he barely knew squat about Photoshop.”

As a side note, I formatted a valid XHTML with CSS page to hand in my homework on, as this assignment was handed in on such a web page. It can be found here.

I’ve been working through the Total Training video series on Adobe’s Creative Suite 3: Web Premium package. I’m almost done with the second Photoshop DVD, and I’ve learned a lot. I also feel that I have uncovered a beast that no amount of training will allow me to fully appreciate. Photoshop is intense! There is so much that you can do, and so much that needs to be understood. I have a headache thinking about it, and am a little worried that I will not learn it as much as I would like. I also can reassure myself by recognizing that I don’t need to know it all.

Today’s effects that I learned about are the glow and emboss effect. I was inspired to create an eclipse using this tool, and while I was at it I turned it into a logo for an imaginary web design studio (perhaps something I’ll use some day). I am a firm believer in turning anything new that is learned with a design software program into something usable. In this case, I was given an opportunity to practice typography as well.

I have just finished my second web page on my quest to design XHTML and CSS validated websites. For the beginner, the task is a repetitive series of trying to remember a piece of code, implementing it, finding out that it didn’t work, and then troubleshooting with Google. However, once completed, the reward is great. I can see some improvements over my first web page (although I wouldn’t say the design is any better).

Here is a link to my first page.

Here is a link to my second page.

Both pages are homework assignments for Franklin University, where I am a student, so don’t expect to find anything amazing. I would have spent more time developing a more interesting and comprehensive theme on the second page, but I have a Java test on Monday and didn’t feel like taking any more time on it. Perhaps as things get easier, I can spend more time developing better design.

Addendum:

I forgot to mention that I coded these pages “by hand” using only notepad and a web browser.

I wanted to write this quick post so that I can reference it myself later.   It seems that selecting a font size for a web page is no easy task.  When printing a document, you specify the point of the font (72 point anyone?), and print.  If someone can’t read what you’ve printed, they either hold the page closer or further away from their face.  Creating text for the web is a little different, as many people can alter the size of their font to suit their tastes.  What might look like a good size to you when designing a page, may be way too large or small for others.

To complicate things, there are 8 different ways to specify fonts on a web page: em, ex, px, pt, pc, in, mm, and cm.  In addition to that, you can use keywords like large, small, larger, and smaller.  Just for fun, the main browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera) have their own way of handling some of these things.

Just how do I get the font to be a readable size without looking like a billboard?

I came across a solution today while researching the topic, Owen Briggs suggests setting the paragraph (p) font to 1em, and setting the font size to around 76% in the body style (oh yeah, did I mention that you could specify percent too?).  I look forward to trying this, and hopefully making the web a more readable, and accessible place to hang.