New ideas for website design, graphics, tips and techniques

Fall 1997
Coming up with lamp

new ideas
for websites is always a challenge..
You could build a site that looks a lot like everyone else's
or you could spend a little time coming up with something new.
Here are some ideas to jog the creative brain

Looking For A New Kind of Shadow

raised 3-D text

gaussian blur

PHOTOSHOP DESIGN TIPS:
Look around the web and you will see a lot of nifty graphics. Some techniques catch on faster than others, but one seems to show up on every page: the gaussian blur shadow for text. It has its uses, but its time for a new shadow. If you have ever read "Outside" magazine, you will recognize the new effect above with the raised 3-D text with an edge. To find out how you can build one in four easy steps see the page on

PHOTOSHOP TIP #2: 3-D shadow
PHOTOSHOP TIP #3: gold cup

FONT tip #11

Not all browsers have your fonts, so give them a choice. In your <FONT> tag I have found the following selection to give good results on most platforms including Windows 3.x, Win95, Mac, and Unix. For a good sans-serif font use:
<FONT FACE="arial, helv, helvetica, geneva">

Good font sources on the web:
for a whole whack of free fonts designed just for the web, check out Microsoft's Font Pack

Amphigory has a long listing of font sources, including both commercial and free links:
fontlink
You'll find a very long list of free fonts at:

Reverse Table Engineering
HTML AND YOU:
Fine, you've found a page on the web that you really like and you want to see how they put it together. More often than not they'll have used the <TABLE> tag in some unique combination and you want to know how. First, save the page in your browser to your hard-drive. Open the HTML file in any note pad and look for the tag that says <TABLE BORDER=0>. Change all instances of BORDER=0 to BORDER=1. Save the page and view the newly saved page in your browser. You will be able to see all the tables and nested tables used to design the page

Tidy Up the Lines
HTML tip:
Clean up the extra space that occasionally shows up between the very last two lines in a sentence formatted with the <FONT> tag by adding a <BR> just before the </FONT> end tag.

Keeping Track of Page Changes
JAVA SCRIPT FOR THE REST OF US:
You update your pages often and your viewers don't always know when you've made a change. Include the following javascript into your pages and Java Script capable browsers will see the date change as shown.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- hide from non-JavaScript Browsers
	document.write ("Page last modified " + document.lastModified );
	//end hinding -->
</SCRIPT>

Websurfing for ideas
BROWSERS LOOK OUT:
Here are some good website design resources to get the juices flowing:
bell

Studio Archetype: No trip is complete without a visit to Clement Mok designs. From IBM to Kodak and Nintendo you'll be sure to recognize a lot of his work around the web
Organic Online: Built like a delicious box of apples, Organic Online Inc. has plenty for you to chew on. Check out their graphic intensive Riven site (the sequel to Myst)
Adjaceny: Landrover, Specialized, and Powerbar are only some of their projects. See what Adjacency is up to now. Try out their book Creating Killer Interactive Sites
Australian Design Cafe: I really like what they did for the Australian Design Cafe. Drop in and see some more of Nightsky Graphics
Alchemedia: Closer to home, if you ride a mountain bike you've probably heard of Syncros and Rockshox. Both were created by Marshall at Alchemedia