lewro’s blog - 2.1 - web designer beginner

I have been collecting information for my new blog for couple of months. The last month I spent creating wire frames, grids and design proposals for each page in Photoshop. After 65 hours of working in single Photoshop file the goal has been achieved. I am not sure it was the best idea to keep the design of all pages in a single file because my 2gigs memory was surly not enough in the final phase. I am also not sure if 65 hours are to much or not enough. I have spent quite a few hours designing icons, in same cases even 3 hours per icon. But I am happy I have done it. I am happy with the result and hope you will like it too.

Development

The next phase is going to be development. The biggest part is obviously CSS where I am confident enough. There should be no problems in this department. I am going to implement quite a few DOM scripting as well. I have done some of it before and small part is going to be new for me but I am sure I can find the sources to learn from. PHP and HTML is mostly going to come from this version but there are going to be major tweaks in terms of reusability of code and semantic improvements.

How much time do you guys usually spend designing your blog? Do you keep all the pages in a single file? What tools do you use?

When it comes to studying technology or languages I almost always reach for book. But when I want to get the latest information about web design or information technologies in general then I recommend podcasts.

Boagworld

Today I would like to introduce couple of podcasts I have been listening to for months. The one am I going to put on the first position is called boagworld . This podcast is about web design and development. It summarizes all important stuff around web design what happened for the past week and brings lots of useful and deep information in its case studies, interviews and reviews. The podcast is run by 2 guys Paul and Marcus where each of them presents different aspects of web design industry. Paul talks about web development, technologies and Marcus covers the business, marketing and management area of running web design company. If you are into web design or you thinking about running web design company I would strongly recommend subscribing to this podcast.

Diggnation

The next podcast I am going to recommend is called diggnation. I am sure you have already heard about web site called dig.com Kevin is the guy who came with the whole digg idea and this podcast is mainly about the best articles featured on the dig.com. Kevin and his body Alex talk about the technology in a really funny way. The usually mix it with stories of their private lifes. During the whole time of the podcast they drink beer so you can imagine that the flow of the conversion is not always strictly following the theme of the articles featured on the dig.com. I can not forget to say that this podcast is video podcast and it is the most entertaining podcast in my library.

Rissington podcast

There is one more podcast about web design and that is Rissington podcasts. This one has started only recently but again, very entertaining and full of excellent advices. The podcast is based on users questions. It is organized by John Oxton and Jon Hicks. I probably do not have to introduce these two guys if you live your life around web design. If you decide to subscribe to this podcast via iTunes do not forget to check the web site as well. It has brilliant design. Try to resize the browser window once you are there as well.

Photoshop user TV

As a designer you probably can not live without Adobe Photoshop and that is a part of the name of my next recommendation. It is called Photoshop user TV. It is excellent source of ideas, tutorials and tricks used in Photoshop. It is run by 3 Photoshop guys where each of them is top specialist and not only in Photoshop but in other Adobe products and digital photography as well. This podcast is again video podcast. There is no better way to learn all the photoshop stuff. You can just watch this guys working in Photoshop for hours and I am sure you will remember most of it because you can see it in action.

So these are all my web design related podcasts and I have to say I would not probably watch them if they were not so entertaining as they are. So if you are thinking about creating a podcast, make it fun.

Did I miss something? If you know about any good podcast let me know.