Web Design Tips for the Print Designer, Part 2

The design application phase of development can go quickly or get bogged down in all sorts of difficulties. Designing for the web is tricky since certain design decisions have technical, programmatic implications. For example, suppose a design calls for a ghosted photographic background. On top of the background a silhouetted foreground image with a drop shadow is added. The design also calls for the body copy to slightly overlap the foreground image. Additionally, the text was laid out with a 1pt. border with rounded corners. A layout such as this would be very difficult to skin. It would require breaking up images into multiple pieces, and then reassemble them using layers and complex table cells. Borders with rounded corners can only be produced using graphics in combination with complex tables.

Intricate designs such as these can usually be accomplished through various technical workarounds. But the more workarounds needed to implement a design, the more problems there will be in making them work across browsers and platforms (for more information on browser issues see "Browser Battles"). Complex visual design can exponentially increase the difficulty of skinning a website.

Intricate layouts that utilize lots technical workarounds are also harder to maintain. The more complex the code, the harder it will be for someone to go in and make changes to site templates. Making changes to complex code can also create new problems that might require additional browser testing. Sometimes a "fix" made to a complex site can break something else in other browsers or platforms.   next >