Need help designing site

[Adaman]

I want to redesign a lot of stuff with the website I'm trying to build. I don't know how to do it with code, I'd rather just do it in photoshop or something. Here's what it looks like now (started with a free template someone made), and Here's kind of what I want it to look like (to start out anyways). That's not a whole lot of changes, just a few things I want to do for now, but I don't know how to redesign it to look like that. Better to start from scratch? Should I just use something like photoshop to design? It would be kind of confusing to put together the entire page layout in photoshop and try to convert it to be an actual web page. I don't know where to start. I think the site uses both html and css for now.

[roondog]

Its very easy to replace the header. In the css file find div#header and then replace the background properties for your new one.The corners is a bit trickier. As the height of the page stretches with more content you can't just use one image for the background. There are many ways to do this so a google search may be the best bet. if you don't intend the page to get any taller then make a white rounded rectangle in photoshop the size of the page and save it as a gif with transparency. then put that as the background of the div#container in the css.

[Adaman]

Its very easy to replace the header. In the css file find div#header and then replace the background properties for your new one.The corners is a bit trickier. As the height of the page stretches with more content you can't just use one image for the background. There are many ways to do this so a google search may be the best bet. if you don't intend the page to get any taller then make a white rounded rectangle in photoshop the size of the page and save it as a gif with transparency. then put that as the background of the div#container in the css.

That sounds a little confusing but I think I can mange that. Isn't there an easier way to do all of this though? Got to be some program out there for dopes like me.

[rswildy]

Try dreamweaver that makes things very simple, and there are lots of other editors out there that will make this sort of thing easy, to change your logo find this (Located in your CSS file).

div#header {	color: #505623;	background: #e7ead1 url('identity.gif') no-repeat bottom right;	font-size: 1em;	font-family: Georgia, times, serif;	border-bottom: 2px solid #9fac46;}

Change identity.gif to your new banner url.To make the corners round you will have to use images, sinse the page expands it won't be to easy.Hope this clears things up, Rswildy.

[Adaman]

I can manage changing the banner.Someone help a newbie out and tell me there's a (somewhat) easy way to redesign most of this page. If not, I'll leave you all alone, and thanks anyways.

[Adaman]

Eh, well I still need help - I probably need someone to tutor me through a lot of it. Web design is so confusing. I definitely would never do it unless I felt I really should. My parents want me to redesign their business website. Still looking for help.

[LifeInBinary]

Eh, well I still need help - I probably need someone to tutor me through a lot of it. Web design is so confusing. I definitely would never do it unless I felt I really should. My parents want me to redesign their business website. Still looking for help.

Man, I hate to say this - but web design/development is a bit complicated. There really isn't an 'easy' way to do things like this. My advice to you is to either learn (X)HTML and/or CSS from the ground up, so that you have a firm understanding of how to code your visual ideas - or just tell your parents that web design is a professional trade, and suggest they hire someone to make the changes.I don't mean to come down on you at all - please do not hear that - I'm just trying to give you advice. When I started out, I came here all the time - asking similar questions to yours. This is probably the best resource for help that you can possibly find anywhere - I suggest you stick around and learn more.Try doing the tutorials on http://www.w3schools.com/ for HTML, XHTML, and CSS. If you need help, either hit up these forums - or pm me and ask me my email address, I'll help you out man.If you really don't care about the coding at all, and you just want to use some kind of WYSIWYG editor to get the visual look that you want, I have 'LOTS' of expensive software - so if you want to, I'll just make the changes for you and get the files to you - for free. The rounded corners that you want should be a breeze in DreamWeaver.This community got me through my first freelance web design job (when I thought I knew enough to do it all myself), and saved my butt big time - I'll do the same for you. Here's the thing though, I started to realize how much I 'didn't' know once I took some jobs, so I took a break and studied. I have had my nose in the JavaScript Bible, the PHP5 and MySQL Bible, and a book about professional web design using XHTML and CSS. To cover the graphical side of things, I looked into tutorials for Macromedial Fireworks, Flash, and DreamWeaver. I know for a fact that the next job I take, I will be more than able to complete with minimal help (or if not, we've always got these forums).Good luck with your endeavors - if you need some quick help in a jam, pm me for my email address.Cordially,LifeInBinary.