I'm having my first website designed for my startup, do I tell the designer I want a 1920x1200 file and then the coder will just make it so it stretches to the size of the user's resolution or do I need seperate files for the different resolutions (for example 1024x768 would have no extra space on the side)

website noob here

1/30/2010 4:28:07 PM

why the fuck would you want a 1920x1200 website





seriously




and if your designer is asking what resolution you want it designed at, they're asking the wrong fucking questions

1/30/2010 4:30:03 PM

^agree 100%.

1/30/2010 4:33:02 PM

Site best viewed in Netscape Navigator at 480x320.

*facepalm*

1/30/2010 4:47:39 PM

Quote :

"why the fuck would you want a 1920x1200 website"

futureproofing? i dont know! thats why im asking!!!

noone really answered my question, you just made fun of it even after i told you i have no experience in that area

1/30/2010 5:09:04 PM

get a fixed width design that'll fit 1024 or get a fluid width design

1/30/2010 5:13:00 PM

tell your designer you want a 1920x1200 page, and let him know he should notify his coders they should have separate files for other resolutions.

please. tell him that.

Then report back to us his response.

1/30/2010 7:19:32 PM

well 1st off, talking to a coder is a ways away as i'm still talking to the designer who is responsible only for the layout

so clearly that guy has to give me an image (.psd or .ai) at some resolution so that I can then go to the coder and say take this image and create a workable site off of it

i didnt think i was asking the most ridiculous question in the world but apparently you guys think so even for someone who's never made a website before

1/30/2010 8:04:10 PM

who the fuck are you working with?

Are you honestly saying that you have hired a web designer who is literally only going to design the look of your website in photoshop, and you're going to hire someone else completely to implement that design?

1/30/2010 8:12:38 PM

this might be of some help. http://960.gs/

First things first...know your audience. If you want a fixed width design then you probably want to design something that will fit on a minimum screen size of 1024x768. this doesn't mean that your design is this size because you also have to factor in things like the scroll bars width.

If you want a site design that scales meaning everything is 'resized' as you resize your browser window then thats a fluid design. Unless you're looking at tabular data a fluid design isn't what i'd recommend.

Another option with a fixed width design to make it appear more 1920x1200 friendly and not have a bunch of empty space is to have a massive background image that is fixed, as you scale your browser it reveals more of the background without the use of scroll bars. To see an example of what i mean check out http://2advanced.com/ Ignore the fact that their site is all in flash When it loads resize your window. Even though their design is fixed width, you don't have a lot of boring empty space.

Here is another exmpale of a site that has a fixed width design but a larger image for the background. http://www.sourcebits.com/ You can really have some neat effects if you're creative enough.

Here is another example of being creative with a larger background. They use 3 separate backgrounds to create a parallax effect http://www.silverbackapp.com/

[Edited on January 30, 2010 at 8:46 PM. Reason : asdf]

1/30/2010 8:39:55 PM

^^ i'm working with sites like crowdspring and 99designs who give you a one page layout

then i'll have to find someone to actually code the website, correct

is this the first time you've heard of such things?

^ thank you for that info, out of all of those i like the second one with the planet in the background!

1/30/2010 9:15:40 PM

Quote :

"Are you honestly saying that you have hired a web designer who is literally only going to design the look of your website in photoshop, and you're going to hire someone else completely to implement that design?"

that's how me and my coworker work

he doesn't care what the design looks like and i don't care how he codes it

and yet when we're together MAGIC HAPPENS

1/30/2010 9:25:09 PM

I do both so communicating between the coder and designer isn't too much of a problem

1/30/2010 9:26:38 PM

^^ well, for one - the coder is your co-worker. I can definitely see a team with a designer and a coder working together. A small company I worked for in 2004 contracted a local team who did just that - one guy made mockups, and the other guy implemented it. But they worked together, like it sounds like you do with your partner.

I just have a hard time believing you can get a robust, sustainable website where the design and implementation are done in completely separate phases by people who don't know each other.

1/30/2010 9:53:27 PM

well remind me in 3 weeks and ill show you cause i dont know either

1/31/2010 1:46:20 AM

^^

i agree with that for sure

1/31/2010 10:56:26 AM

I did some contract work where thats how they fuctioned. They just gave me PSD's of a design and I had to code it. No idea who the designer was. I was able to do it, but it would have been much easier if I'd been able to design it myself (to better tailor the graphics for coding). The way I had to chop up the PSD's was not ideal to make the site scalable.

2/1/2010 7:42:19 PM

well the coder isn't forced to use THAT psd that I give him. he can create a site from scratch, it's just that he doesn't have to worry at all about the look, only the functionality.

2/1/2010 7:46:25 PM

Quote :

"it's just that he doesn't have to worry at all about the look, only the functionality."

....that's just not true. Getting a site to look like some arbitrary image, without reverting to turning the whole page into a bunch of sliced and diced image files, can be just as hard as designing it int he first place

2/1/2010 8:05:51 PM

I'll keep that in mind being new to it, i'll go into it knowing that if changes need to be made then changes need to be made. like I said I don't think the coding will be too complicated since it's just static information and not a tool or database that needs implementing.

I don't want to be "that client" but something reasonably resembling the design I bring in will make me happy

2/1/2010 8:16:21 PM