What's your general process for creating a style?
 

I'm not a designer. Never was. I get by with some tooth pulling. When I'm asked to do a style, I generally don't have a real great way of going about it. How do you go about it? What steps do you take? What features do you usally try to incorporate? Do you prefer straight CSS or do you bust open Photoshop?

Aaron

1) Before anything:

- talk to client
- research competition

2) Pen & Paper:

- list out important features necessary
- spell out some words & phrases relating to the target audience
- do a sketch of some 'blocks' of where the nav and features will be

3) Photoshop:

- logo / identity design
- mockup of header / front page

I usually start out by drawing it on paper in school, with notes on how I want things done. Then I'll take it home, scan it in the computer n make a rough outline in photoshop then work from that adding n changing what I want to make it how I want it to look.

IMO You guys really need to start talking about such things on vBT and NOT vB.org

I see little problem with design discussion here. :rolleyes:

I'm personally fond of using Adobe Photoshop for the heart of the style, i.e. the header, footer, home and forum main page of a site.

Then just translate the design into HTML and CSS. It beats the hell out of stressing over how things should look when going at it in a text editor, with no real visual conception of how you want things to be.

Criteria I regard of most importance for any style (in no particular order):

• Mobility - how easy is it to navigate. Cluttery navbars or irregularly placed links are the worst yet most common thing I view on the web, and it's no surprise at times when portals holster most of them. When people go to a new website, it's fact that the first place they look is at the top of the page (it is where the logo is), so place your navigation/feature links at the top. (e.g. weather.com)
• Readability - small fonts look nice on techy sites, or those where the target audience is young, but stay away from using them on professional/eBusiness sites.
• Contrast / Colors - designs of Monochromatic or Analogous schemes seem to work best. If you're going with monochromatic, don't be too close on hues, or you might develop a style like deviantART (although I greatly respect deviantART for its content, the color scheme has been bugging me for years).
• Breathability - Another irritating design flaw that makes sites too compact. Not compact as in gamespot.com, which although things appear close together, the balance of colors and spacing between tables makes things look more spacious. A design like SitePoint.com really captures the roomy design. A style like artician looks nice, with a good blend of colors, but text and tables seem to compact. For a techy look, it does good, but could prove better. Another negative example are some portal systems, such as those for vBulletin, where the padding of tables is too close and the page seems scrunched.
• Stature - I define this style that means business, (it looks determined and professional). This includes not just aesthetics, but your HTML should also be very clean. Too many examples out there: microsoft.com, cafepress.com, or dubtastic.com. Obviously these sites are of high quality, but if you practice enough you'll come to understand that it really isn't that hard to do such (given you have the time).
• Respect - don't rip other styles. It's known we all at one point or another will look at another style and try to copy design elements of it, which is fine, but copying the entire HTML, or even a significant portion of its unique style, and then making changes just isn't the way to go (e.g. voidix looks a bit PHPbb'sh. Show some innovativeness. You'll improve your experience if you do the coding yourself, anyway.

Some of my recommendations. If I can think of more, I'll post. ;)

totaly over looked my comment mike >.>

Zachery,

Why is this not the place to discuss these things? That makes no sense at all. It's part of creating the forum...

VeloCD, great insight.

Aaron

Because this discussion would be much better held at a forum related to its topic, this is somthing vBT is really missing, active discussion about things relevant to the site.

So why does vb.org care about vbT? I mean I say that facetiously, but seriously. vb.org's existance is not for the purpose of making sure vbT has traffic. I'm a member of vb.org not of vbT, therefore my related topic was posted here, not there. It's not irrelevant to what is discussed here and so shouldn't be treated as a red headed step child of vb.org. Know what I mean? ;)

vBT is one of the sister sites and it provides styles and template modifcations to vBulletin, one if its current problems is lack of community contirubtion, and your part of the problem, I CARE, vB.org is for HACKING AND CODE, as in PHP SOURCE CODE, mofication, not for style modifcation.