Web pages

Dr. Frenchenstein

So my office is thinking of redesigning our webspace (i'm a medium sized dept in a very large Co.) and being in technology, it's probably going to fall on me to do this. I know enough html to get by, but certainly not enough to design a page from scratch, and have it look professional. Do you guys have any resources you could recommend? I was thinking about just buying an HTML for dummies book or something, and just plowing ahead. Is that a good idea? or would i be getting just far enough to make me look like an idiot when it's time to put the pages into production? Our pages are getting to be fairly high profile, part of me wants to push it onto our marketing dept b/c that is their job.

SeñorAmor

Start with these two sites:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com
http://www.w3schools.com

Jimmy King

There's a lot more to a nice, clean, professional looking page than just a purely technical understanding of html and css. I would just be straightforward with them about your abilities and let them make the decision.

If this is a purely internal site, it's probably no big deal. I've done those for employers in the past and had them range from plain old white background with black text (and a very complex back end for processing form data) to much nicer looking, but still clearly amateur, free templates downloaded from the web.

If this is a customer facing website, I'd tell them to pay someone who has studied this shit and can do it right, though.

supabeast

Get management to hire a design firm. Designers go to school and design stuff all day long so that the rest of the world doesn't have to.

Dr. Frenchenstein

Oh it's all internal, but offices around the world will be using it so i don't want it to look like ass. It's mostly basic back end stuff, links to files, and other pages, etc. I'm in a big corporation, so i'm sure people will be nitpicking them to death. I'm just worried i'll get them workable with the book knowledge, but when people want adjustments that seem simple to them, i wont be able to do it.

Jimmy King

Eh, it's all going to depend on the company. The place I did them for was Infineon Technologies. Not exactly small time stuff there. Most of the internal websites looked like they were thrown together by someone with about 2 weeks of web design experience.

Like I said, just tell them what your experience is if they want you to do it. If you're bored whip up a couple practice sites so you can show them exactly what they can expect. If they want more, they'll have to find someone else/hire someone who has actually studied this stuff.

I doubt the technical side will be a problem for you. The hard part is all the artsy shit... getting the right colors, determining where to put your images (actually getting them there once you know where to put them is easy), what font to use, etc.

crake

I'd find a basic template and work with that. You'll be able to use your (hopefully) expanding html knowledge to make design changes that would suit you better. Since it sounds like the project itself is pretty basic, I'm willing to bet you'd have little trouble finding a (legally!) free basic template on the web.

krl

Some good template resources:

http://www.oswd.org/

http://www.templateworld.com/free_templates.html

http://www.openwebdesign.org/

Rohaq

External, pay someone else to do it.

Internal, black text, white background, focus on function.