Comments on: Dear Print Designer Doing Web Design,

By: web design galway

web design galway — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:29:01 +0000

Hi Andy,
Great post I will bookmark and share this one. I enjoyed reading your articles and responses. I use px rather than pt in font sizes as I have found that px tends to be more consistent in various browsers though for printing I would use pt. I would welcome your thoughts on em, px and pt ..pro and cons, and thanks for sharing.

By: Linda McGuire

Linda McGuire — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:10:23 +0000

Just found this today… thanks for the writeup! And as a print designer for almost 30 years, may I say you have got a wonderful feel for type. I’m watching my own comment show up in a beautiful italic and thinking, how did you manage this?
I think I’ve got most of this checklist in mind as I do layouts for the web; the one place I find the most difficulty is scalability. No control over the final display size!! Ach!! How to cope!!?? Ah well, it’s a new world.
–well, new to me.
Thanks for a great post.

By: I don’t get paid for this

I don’t get paid for this — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:06:04 +0000

[...] Dear Print Designer Doing Web Design This is a very “blue-collar” list coming from the perspective of an XHTML/CSS coder who’s job it is to implement designs. [...]

By: Andy Ford

Andy Ford — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:24:18 +0000

@Rob
I usually tackle hanging indents in one of two ways. Using a graphic placed using CSS as you suggest. Or putting the quotation mark in the content and then using a negative ‘text-indent’ value in the CSS to get the quote to hang.

Usually the first option is a little more predictable, but it will not scale when a user changes their text size in the browser. The second option scales nicely, but requires content editors to be aware of the need to include the quotation marks in their content (or not including them if the developer has hard-coded them into the template). In either case, it would be a safe bet to have some server side logic that deals with this.

Just to be clear, HTML and CSS are not programming languages. But I agree with your assessment that HTML can be picked up fairly quickly, but CSS is a bit more complicated. Both have their nuances, and can be learned quickly, but really mastering them takes a lot of patience and practice.

By: Rob Stathem

Rob Stathem — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:40:04 +0000

Hi Kim, I totally understand what you’re talking about! The Graphic Design world is completely different than the web design world. Although, since you have experience in the graphic design world, you’ll have a great sense of designing web pages.

It’s a VERY tough transition, and I don’t mean to scare or frighten you! It’s a lot of fun, but, but being a web designer requires both design skills and programming skills. I would recommend learning HTML and CSS first. These are really important programming languages to learn. I think you’ll find over time that HTML is one of the most basic languages and you’ll be able to pick it up rather quickly. CSS is a bit more complicated, but it’s a lifesaver and timesaver. Updates can be made on the fly and it’s really a great language.

Find other web design mentors/tutors who can help you along the way too. Tutorial websites are helpful as well.

Good luck!

By: Rob Stathem

Rob Stathem — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:30:31 +0000

Great article! That’s true–having a foundation into graphic design is important for web design, although, I think anyone can get into web design without a graphic design background. I’m pursuing my BS degree in web design and multimedia and I never had a former background in graphic design. Although, the very first classes I took were in graphic design and it did help me a great deal.

Speaking of web standards, what’s the correct format for designing a “hanging quote” for the web? The prime inch marks on the keyboard do not qualify as “standard” quote marks.
Do you recommend designing these quotes in Photoshop and then placing with CSS?

-Rob

By: kim crowe

kim crowe — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:12:42 +0000

Thanks for the tips. I am a print designer and making the transition to web has been like going back to algebra class! I fear the coding and tagging. There was a reason I went to art school in the first place!

That being said I need a job. After years of freelancing I now face getting a real job for a variety of reasons. Maybe I should go back to school?

By: Molly

Molly — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:49:27 +0000

Thanks for this article. I’m a former very-good-print-designer recently hired by a website development company, and figuring out how to adapt my skills to the needs of the web has been quite a stressful journey. Information like this is very helpful, and I appreciate the generous spirit you offer it in.

AND… I LOVE the colors you’ve used here! :o)

By: Mark Aplet

Mark Aplet — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:19:38 +0000

hehe I thought it was pretty cool. Great minds think alike right :) Good to see others in the web industry trying to help out or print designer friends. The added bonus to this education, is that hopefully we will not continue to receive really bad files to process and make sense of.

Hopefully we will not get dinged by the search engines. I think they would look at massive link farms and ding them, not you or me.

By: Andy Ford

Andy Ford — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:47:34 +0000

@Mark – Dude, that’s just freaky. I think we’re Borg or something. They did fly around in a big cube shaped ship… the “Box Model”?

Had to give you some props in the post as I see you’ve also done for me on your post. We’ll probably get banned from Google now for being a link farm…