Newbies & Dreamweaver
A friend of mine has decided that he wants to be a web designer and has enrolled in a course to learn the basics of web design. It’s been really interesting getting feedback from him on how people regard web design these days and the most common thing he reports back about is that everybody wants to skip learning the boring HTML part and learn all about Dreamweaver, afterall, they’ve heard SO much about Dreamweaver and seem to think it’s the magic bullet.
This is for you, newbies and wannabe web designers who think you should be learning Dreamweaver and not HTML, this is straight from the web designers mouth. I’ve been doing web design for 11 years and using Dreamweaver for about 8 years, and this is what I think:
Dreamweaver is not the Magic Bullet: Dreamweaver is not the answer to all your web design prayers. Dreamweaver will not slay all your design demons. Dreamweaver is not the holy grail of web design. Dreamweaver will not help you sleep better in your web designer’s bed at night.I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear but this is not the X-factor. I will not build your hopes up and I will not say that you’re wonderful and you’re going to make it even if you’re crap. The harsh reality of web design is that it is a fiercely competitive world and you will either sink or you will need to swim and swim very well too. You will not be able to design websites just because you’re using Dreamweaver.My Advice: Learn HTML, learn to design & code and then maybe learn Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver is just a Tool: Moreso, Dreamweaver is a toolbox. If you turn up to a garage with a top-of-the-range SnapOn toolbox stuffed full of shiny SnapOn tools, that doesn’t make you a mechanic does it? Just because you own a shiny packed-full toolbox does not automatically qualify you to fix cars does it?
My Advice: Again, learn HTML, learn to design and then you could learn Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver is for experienced designers: I own a modified 300BHP Subaru Legacy. It looks great, sounds great and goes like the clappers. If you’ve just passed your driving test or if you’re not experienced or old enough then you won’t be able to drive my Subaru. Why? Because the insurance companies will not insure you on such a powerful, high IG car and by law you cannot drive without insurance. You will not be able to handle the power and the same goes for Dreamweaver. If you’re not experienced then don’t touch it, you won’t know what you’re doing with it.My Advice: Learn HTML first. Walk before you even think of running.
I’d point you to some forum posts I’ve seen over the years as to the debate on whether designers should use Dreamweaver or not, but they tend to be filled with the same polarised black & white nonsense and it’s usually not very helpful. What you would see in these forums would be either:
I love Dreamweaver, it’s wonderful.
or
I hate Dreamweaver, I only hand code.
These responses are a waste of time, a waste of forum space and a waste of server hard drive space. They serve no purpose to answering the debate over whether web designers should choose to use Dreamweaver or not.
If all you can say is that you love Dreamweaver then that’s great, I’m happy for you. Where did you spend your honeymoon and did people give the “happy couple” funny looks?
If you hate Dreamweaver because you’d rather hand code then you’re just a snob; you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. There’s really no point in being so ideologically opposed to it.
Neither of these standpoints actually answers the most important question of WHY? Why do you love Dreamweaver? Why do you hate Dreamweaver? “It’s great” and “it sucks” are really not very useful nor professional answers.
Here’s my take on Dreamweaver.
I started hand coding from a book on HTML back in 1998 (SAMS Teach yourself HTML in 24 hours. It’s out of print, and only the 2001 edition, which includes XHTML, is available) I didn’t touch Dreamweaver until about 2001. In those 3 years I learned HTML and design, all from scratch, totally self-taught. I had qualifications in Art, Design and Computer Science and a background in engineering and construction with some art & design commissions under my belt so I was well-suited for the design/technical aspects of the web design industry.
Dreamweaver, for me in my 8 years of using it, is a tool that helps me to manage multiple sites. It allows me to switch between working on a big project on one dedicated web server to another project on a shared server and manage the tens of thousands of files that may be in that site. (Yes, tens of thousands of files – did you think web design was all about 4 page websites?) With Dreamweaver I generally manage around 20 projects at any one time, so its pretty handy for keeping things organised. I could fill it up with every site I manage, but there’s really no point if they’re not maintained regularly (I tend to archive sites for good housekeeping and re-install them locally as needs be)
Dreamweaver is a managed and manageable environment for me, so it does virtually everything I need it to do. OK, DW FTP can be slow, not capable of multiple connections and not fully featured, so I will use Filezilla to back me up in those situations. I prefer to edit .htaccess files and check my error logs in Notepad++ and edit my CSS in TopStyle but that’s cool, because Dreamweaver does most of the other things I need it to.
Dreamweaver allows me to manage my workflow. With templates and code snippets I can rapidly work new HTML pages and deploy regularly-used pieces of code.
Dreamweaver allows me to work in design view, code view or both, meaning that I can switch between designer and developer coding easily. If I’m happy with the code that Dreamweaver spits out I can use the design view. If I want to keep an eye on it I use the split view to see both the code & design views and if I’m working purely in PHP I can just use the code view.
Sure, if I allow it to, Dreamweaver occasionally throws up code I don’t always like, but because I know my HTML/XHTML and I work in code view aswell, I can spot it a mile off and fix it. Of course, Dreamweaver can be buggy and doesn’t always give me the shortcuts I need but I get by and it is a time saver.
I didn’t like that Adobe brought-out Macromedia, that move seems to have made the marketplace less competitive, but what can I do about that? However, that said, I’m still using Create Suite 3 as opposed to the new-fangled CS4 but with Photoshop and Illustrator bundled-in alongside Flash & Fireworks, I’m more than happy with the CS3 package.
So, if you get to know your HTML 4.01 and 5, XHTML 1.0 strict and transitional, CSS 1, 2 & 3, Fireworks, Photoshop & Flash, learn your FTP and understand your LAMP environments, get to grips with MySQL on phpMyAdmin and your command line work on PuTTY ssh client, tweak your Apache webserver and keep up with PHP aswell as being able to wrangle your sites in your beloved Dreamweaver then you’re probably going to make a good web designer.
But don’t get too hung up on the tools or the technology, just make sure you can actually DESIGN things, that’s the really important part of being a web designer. (The clue is in the term DESIGNer) And Dreamweaver is not the be-all and end-all of web design. Some people hate it and don’t/won’t use it, but that’s entirely up to them. Personally I think it’s a very handy tool that I use daily and could pobably not live without. However, as this article is aimed at newbies, know your code first and then use the tools (if they’re right for you). You too may either love or hate Dreamweaver, or better still just find Dreamweaver to be one more big handy tool in your web design toolbox.
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MOO II
My MOO business cards arrived yesterday.
The business card holding box was very solid and cardboard rather than the usual plastic boxes, made from recycled pulp and biodegradable.
The MOO branding was fun & funky, as you’d expect, with a paper wrap on the outside of the card holder declaring
“Quick, schedule a meeting! Your Business Cards have arrived.”
As for the cards themselves I’d placed the company logo on the back of the cards from an original PNG and it looked OK in landscape. On the flipside I’d placed the logo again but in portrait with my details below.
The logo wasn’t as sharp as I expected even though (I thought) I’d supplied a hi-res PNG. The 350gsm card felt a lot flimsier than the cards I created for a client the other week at 400gsm. The lettering was OK – it was from a restricted number of fonts available (about 12) and the choice of formatting was also limited (bold line or not bold line, no bold characters or individual words)
So, on the whole? I like the MOO brand and their marketing, they certainly have an appeal and a personality that is very pleasing. The cards were the “Green uploader” – 100% recycled, totally chlorine free (TCF) and no frills. The limitation of font use and control over the layout was not something a designer likes to have to deal with.
But the price and the relative ease of creating the cards means that they’re are popular and MOO will go far. £14.04 for 50 green cards including delivery (That was with a 10% discount code)
If you’re a designer or you need to impress your clients with a top quality card or your clients expect no less than a spot-varnished sliver of royal standards then it’s probably best to create your business cards in Photoshop or Illustrator and go see your local printer. But if you’re on a budget and need a fistful of cheap, quick cards that are better than the usual entry-level fare then MOO are a good choice.
I’m now going to dig out that issue of Computer Arts with the tutorial on designing for the foil/metallic printing process – I need my cards to look like chrome…
MOO
In the 9 years that I’ve been running 22i design I don’t recall ever having any business cards. That may sound a bit strange but we’ve honestly never really had the need for them.
However, with the latest upturn in business (thanks to all the good people who’ve recommended us) plus recently designing the classy little business cards for ICCTS I decided to dip my toes in the water and thought I’d give the much talked about MOO a try.
Compared to the normal process of designing business cards, where you completely craft the artwork from scratch and send it to your friendly neighbourhood printer, (in our case Charterlith Printers in Fleet) MOO is a simple automated online affair where you pick the type of card you want, upload the artwork, type some text in and then pay.
One of our web clients uses the well-known Vistaprint service for their stationery. You can tell that the print quality and design/style is below what you pay for regular design & print but there is a market out there for cheap business cards.
So whilst we’d dearly love to have dreamt up something along the lines of any one of the 100 really creative business cards (our logo would look great with a bit of spot varnish on a completely matt card) all we’re trying to do here is test out the budget end of the market and, all-in, we paid around £14.04 for 50 double-sided 350gsm 100% recycled card TCF business cards to be printed and delivered (by next Thursday). That’s about 28p a card.
The process was relatively painless but, as a designer, you miss the total control you have over the creative process. There were, for instance, only a dozen or so fonts to choose from and only line-by-line options (for example you can’t increase the weight of, italicise certain words or letters or switch fonts or font sizes).
It’s all very simple and templated however, for the price, you can’t complain so I’ll report back when they arrive; I’m sure they’ll “do the job”.