Getting Started
{Design:}
There are lots of options when it comes to customizing your website's design. These options are made possible using stylesheets, external files which tell the browser how to display your page while streamlining its filesize. This results in lean, quick-loading pages to encourage your visitors to hang around a while before moving on - a must with today's short attention spans. These stylesheets will continue to provide options for each detail of layout and design along the way until your site's design serves all the necessary practical purposes with an attractive presentation that's genuinely representative of you and your business.
How a person's web browser reads pages can vary, and so can your browsing security. I highly recommend using Firefox (for PC or mac) for its standards compliance, online security and faithfulness to the web designer's display instructions. Download it for free using the link on the right. Safari is next on my list for supporting certain javascript features (such as Facebook's login page) that Firefox deems insecure. However many browsers are on the list, Internet Explorer is on the bottom of it with this designer's black mark on it for being disagreeable to most intended design features that make pages unique, and for lousy security.
{Header:}
Your site's title and/or your business logo are displayed at the top of the page. Butterfly Jewelry and Treasures supplied me their existing logo. We added transparency to the image so the page's background would show behind it.
Don't have a logo? First you'll need to choose a font and color for the text and a background color. If you're not sure what text style you want, I'll select a number of fonts for you to choose from. This may be all you need, like Jennifer's:
If you have an image you'd like to use here I'll need a large (at least 800 pixels wide) .jpeg, .tiff or .pdf of the image to work from. An image background can add a lot of style, as in West Gold Mining's header...
...and establish your site's theme, as in seasidewomen.org, for which we created a custom logo backed with an image they chose from a stock photo website. If you need to look for a photo, you can start here. Or click the orange button to your right to view my own portfolio.
Logos not intended to fill the entire space should be 300 x 300 pixels or larger.
If you need a logo, I can create one from an image of your choice and a nice font, like the headers above and below. I'll need images of your art/products/location/you - whatever you think will be useful for the background or logo to the side of your site's name. Regarding fonts, if you know what you want we're halfway there - or I can select a number of fonts for you to choose from. Creating the header using your own images is very effective, going a long way toward establishing the identity of your site and laying out a color scheme and style harmonious with your personality and your business. With a taste of your work incorporated into the design, visitors are encouraged to look further into your site to see what you have to offer.
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