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Elements of Great Web Design: The Polish

psdtuts.com — When I put together designs, I do so in two phases - Layout and Polish. During the layout phase I place the main objects and usually finishing with something that looks relatively complete. In the polish stage I go over the design and adjust colours, type treatments, shadows, layers, and clean it all up. In this first of a series of tutorials on...

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  • geoken, on 10/15/2007, -2/+216What do people from Poland have to do with great web design?
    • geneticlemon, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19"He wound up cleaning the wound gingerly."

      "The woman would polish the Polish antique."
    • MutatedNantuko, on 10/10/2007, -2/+32I saw the title and thought the same damn thing.
      • fkr3, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2I saw the description and thought how ridiculous. The design should be finalised and approved before you even begin throwing it together not afterwards.
    • capiCrimm, on 10/15/2007, -7/+3if you put plastic wrap around your webspace, like the polish do furniture, it will be a timeless classic. That's why shiney sleek designs are in. Next step, cheap flower patterns.
      • HardSide, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3polaks dont put plastic on furnitures, thats jews.
        • pyper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2And there sure as hell are not a lot of them left in Poland.
    • DiggMasterJ, on 10/15/2007, -7/+3Yea, if he didn't capitalize every word like a Rtard it would make more sense.
      • zspeed78, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8I once heard Polish is the only word that changes meaning when capitalized or not. 'My Polish friend never has shoe polish'
        • DiggMasterJ, on 10/14/2007, -0/+1Allow me to blow your mind: Turkey
      • wesd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9I have never eaten turkey in Turkey.
    • jacekpoplawski, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3A lot, for example compare allegro.pl to ebay.com.

    • t1m0j5, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1did you read the article? moron.
    • SurlyOpie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Frederic Chopin did a great job on my website
      • ravelrm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0A revolutionary design with a link to a funeral march, right?
  • epalla, on 10/16/2007, -17/+15*shrug* nothing new or revolutionary here.
  • dmbchris, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10Am I the only one that thought about a polish sausage when I saw this topic? I must be really hungry.

    and where's that polish you promised me?
  • DeFex, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Kurwa! watch your mouth!
  • Mongoose, on 10/11/2007, -6/+28You'd think a site dedicated to web design would put more stock in contrast.
    • instabil, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The most important "element of great web design" is usability. A page that's hard to read is just bad design.
  • sambapati87, on 10/16/2007, -8/+19It really bugs me that the "design" category is under "Technology" on Digg. Technology is nothing but a tool as it relates to design!! Too many people have Illustrator (or worse, Photoshop) and begin to call themselves designers. Not saying anything about the article's author, per-say (even though it is nothing but "Web 2.0" cookie cutter styles), I just needed a place to vent this frustration, as an actual visual communications design major.
    • waxdart, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9It's "per se".
    • capiCrimm, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4When you see `design`, just mentally replace it with `interface`, because that was the intent. It seems your thinking of `art`, which is a different idea completely covering not only `design` and `programming`, but `creativity` in general. ``````
      • SpiroPope, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I disagree. Certainly in my realm (industrial / product design), design is about fulfilling a need - to perform a certain task. Technology is an enabler for this, and interface is about how the user interacts with the item, so 'interface' and 'technology' are subsets of the overall design process.
    • djlosch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6i'm surprised that you're still at positive diggs. virtually everyone on digg is a self proclaimed graphic/web designer and any time you bash this mob for their idiocy, they go nuts.

      and this article isn't about "great web design". it's about "web 2.0 SHINY! ROUNDED CORNERS AMAZING!~!!!!!111!!!!LOL!!!!" stupidity.
    • wild, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Dude, I am right there with you. Fellow VCD major frustrated by what passes for great design around here.

      Tweaking colors in a CSS layout doesn't make you a designer.
  • waxdart, on 10/11/2007, -14/+22More accurate headline: Make Your Website Look Like Every Other "Web 2.0" Site.

    Seriously - adding drop shadows and gradients are not "great tips for web design".
    • With, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6Why's this guy getting dugg down? The truth: he speaks it.
    • bpmox, on 10/10/2007, -4/+5I did my part to digg him up
    • koft, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Dugg up for truth
    • smhill, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Me too.
      I suspect Digg is gamed more often than not. That site hits the front page every time they post and the posts are alright, but not great. There are definitely better out there.

      It is pretty suspicious. It is a minimal site with a ton of ads. It always to the front page quickly very often, and nay-sayers are always dugg down.

      http://www.digg.com/design/Super_Slick_Dusky_Light ...


      • richashby, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I've dug him up too. There's an awful lot of nonsense written about web design, and this kind of thing perpetuates it.
    • Syntaxis, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2This typical "design" is popular because it makes novices feel good about themselves: everyone can make (read: copy/paste) a layout like that without too much effort. And when it doesn't look half-bad they write a tutorial about how they added shadows and gradients. I mean. That's like being exited over being able to change your -font- in OpenOffice Writer. That's just.. the basics..
  • yagotmeseruchi, on 10/10/2007, -6/+5The polish stage should include bringing on an illustrator so the money bags don't look like balls of pizza dough. It amazes me how many designers think they can illustrate.
  • klick37, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5I could have sworn by the title that it would demand you outsource to Poland.
  • woofers07, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13I like how the first element discussed is text clarity, when the designer uses a medium tone text on a dark background which is great for legibility (actually it's not).
  • kutateli, on 10/16/2007, -7/+4Great article. I finished a site design not to long using this style ( http://www.kutateli.com/clients/ocp/ ). Definitely my favorite style to use for larger sites.
    • paris75, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2nice what tools did you use?
    • markstory, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2That's a good looking design you have there. Good job!
  • bingobongony, on 10/16/2007, -4/+2Which web sites are from Poland?
  • ollie1977, on 10/16/2007, -4/+3great article! Always looking for information to help my web design efforts
  • brindon, on 10/16/2007, -8/+1Tip #258: Spell color as "colour" to alienate and confuse the most wealthy of your potential clients.
    • JeremyBanks, on 10/16/2007, -2/+11Alternate: Spell colour as "color" to alienate most of the world.
    • djlosch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3and don't forget behaviour/behavior, catalogue/catalog, and grey/gray.

      personally, i use the british version for all of them, and also prefer logical quotations (british style also) to silly APA/MLA/BB style.
      • vat0r, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Congratulations!.. I bet that makes you feel superior to everyone else.
  • kimondo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Does anyone else think it looked better before the Polish? - the donate button was more prevalent, the contrast easier on the eye, and that shiny effect just looks dated now.
  • ooh456, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I really like the light brown text on brown background. Oh that reminds me I need to take a...
  • zyoslancer, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Why is it that half of you think this is something to do with polish people? LOL Polish - superiority of manner or execution; refinement; elegance, or polish up, to improve; refine Either you people are making jokes or you really are stupid lol
    • t1m0j5, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1thanks, it just shows how many people don't read the article before digging.
  • drewprops, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2The word "separate" is spelled incorrectly in one of the diagrams, which is of course an error that can bite any of us... problem is, when you're writing an article about "putting the polish on a website" you have to consider every element, from stylesheets to spelling to the quality of the writing itself. The more things you get right, the more you're held in regard by the visitor. The more you get wrong, the faster they're likely to depart, thinking you an amateur. How many times have you found an error on a "big time" website and realized "these guys are human??"... didn't they drop a notch somehow? Me? After I ran across that one little spelling error in this middling article I clicked away and went about my business... it was the one excuse to leave I was looking for... and believe me that people are always looking for the "sign" when it's time to leave a website. (note that "colour" is not a spelling error, it is a UK style for spelling and alienates far less of the world than you realize...hehehe)
    • RecoDesign, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You made a mistake yourself. So I clicked away and immediately to tell you that you typed the word you when you meant to type you're. Spell check doesn't catch everything. You still have to proofread. Everyone makes mistakes. Don't be such an elite ***** about it. You're not perfect either.
  • metric7, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1They didn't forget Polish
  • FZero, on 10/16/2007, -3/+10I couldn't read the text. The colors are too dark and the website design is confusing. It lacks, you know, polish.
  • solid12345, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2More web 2.0 crap, if websites were physical entities the sales of turtle wax and Mr. Clean would be up 2,000%.
  • notantspants, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0@geoken: actually, only today, my project team asked for advice from our in-house web designer ...... and he's Polish. So, the title of this article is correct.
  • cotaskmemalloc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Dugg down. I immediatly ignored this site as soon as I COULD NOT READ A SINGLE WORD BECAUSE OF THE RETARDED COLOR SCHEME.
  • TheGonzo, on 08/13/2008, -0/+1I thought it was a citizen of Poland
  • copyland, on 10/16/2007, -7/+1Thinging about web design as a career?

    this just in from CHINA:

    Cost Per Hour

    website design

    US$6/hr

    picture update

    US$6/hr

    web template design

    US$8/hr

    text add

    US$6/hr

    website management

    US$6/hr

    graphic update

    US$6/hr

    flash design

    US$10/hr

    design update

    US$6/hr

    copy writing

    US$6/hr

    website update

    US$6/hr

    e-commerce web design

    US$10/hr

    website optimization

    US$6/hr

    e-commerce management

    US$6/hr

    data reporting

    US$6/hr

    CMLS Technology is a back-office provider. We usually deal with Web Design Company and website development services firm. This enables us to focus less on marketing, more on our main competency, which is turning out fast, accurate and dependable work for our clients, just like you.

    Offshore IT Outsourcing has proved to be a deciding factor for companies that offer cost and quality edge in a competitive market. The success of Offshore Outsourcing relies on the word ¡°customer satisfaction¡±. Offshore Software Outsourcing is much about building relationships based on trust, and mutual respect. CMLS Software provides reliable, quality and value added services to focus on your core business needs so that you are assured that a dedicated offshore outsourcing team is working for you.

    CMLS is proud to be a China Offshore Development company, which effectively provides "best-in-class" offshore software development services.
  • cutebutnerdy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0A little hard to read with the black background
  • mytruckhasdents, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1the only difference i see is that apparently every new site is supposed to have a "digg!" stamp on it....
  • drgmdp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1yea, cause that site is really well designed
  • lynx77, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3How ironic that the first tip is contrast when his own site has awful contrast on the text/background.
  • haroldk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I like the before and after views.
    Lack of contrast between the tutorial text and the background is poor. Given how the reader's monitor is adjusted, this can make the text hard to read.
  • Leopards, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1For those that don't get it! The only word in English that changes it's pronunciation depending on whether or not it is capitalized is Polish ie. pertaining to or referring to Poland, polish ie. to make shiny or smooth and the substance used to do this!!
  • pankaj010203, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Nice Tips, i'll try ir on my site http://www.greymatterindia.com/
  • fly21, on 06/20/2008, -0/+0good article
    adequately open design theme
  •  

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