Software for web designers and typical workflow for website creation?

[skauffman]

Hey guys,

I've just been hired as the Web Designer at a new company to design/maintain client websites.

They don't know a whole lot about web design technology/software. They're asking me to basically tell them, "This is the software that I need... this and this and that."

Lately I've been using WordPress and Thesis to design my websites - very easy and fast. But I'm thinking this may not be the best way to design professional websites. Sometimes I feel like it's holding me back.

What's the typical 'workflow' for creating and managing websites? I assume just about everybody uses a CMS of some kind right? But how do you design the websites before using the CMS?

I'm thinking about the possibility of designing a website in Dreamweaver, and then transferring that to WordPress (or another CMS) maybe, if that's even possible?

And what software should I request? Besides Photoshop of course, which they already have. I'll be using a Mac, also.

Thanks for the help and I appreciate any suggestions!

 

[Absolution]

I am not a professional, so I don't use any CMS. But I usually hear people using Drupal (free).

I normally do all my editing in Notepad++ (free), but Dreamweaver (not free) might be nicer for its previewing abilities. I am not sure how custom webpages fit in the CMS layouts however.

For graphics I would say a bitmap (Adobe Photoshop - not free) and vector editors (Adobe Illustrator - not free) are needed. A good alternative for Illustrator that natively works in SVG is Inkscape (free). SVG is a good vector format to get into as webpages have begun to support it. I try to design as much as I can in vector formats because of their scalability.

For file transferring I use FileZilla (free). I found it to be better than other file transfer software.

Will they be providing you with server space or do you have to set it up yourself? Normal software for that is Apache (free), PHP (free), and MySQL (free).

So for the most part everything is free except for the adobe products. I am not sure if all of the free software I listed is compatible with Macs.

 

[skauffman]

I'm not sure about the server stuff. I'm thinking I'll probably just use online web hosting services? Like BlueHost, HostGator, etc? What's the best way to go about doing that and making accounts for all of the sites?

As far as CMS goes... what's the best way to create a website, and then use a CMS to handle it? Do designers typically create a website outside of a CMS, using Dreamweaver, Notepad, Photoshop, etc... and then go into the CMS and customize a theme or something to match the look of their design?

Thanks

 

[ronaldroe]

Typically, designers will do all of the work themselves, from scratch. As for what to use, that will depend entirely on what the needs of the company are. If you need something that you can update, you should go with a CMS. Since you're comfortable with Wordpress, if you can make it work for what you need, go with it, but learn how to create your layout from scratch. It isn't difficult at all, and you'd be surprised how much more flexible Wordpress becomes (not that it isn't already) when you learn how to build layouts from scratch.

Regarding software, if the company's willing to pay, I'd suggest having them buy Photoshop and Illustrator at the very least. As far as Dreamweaver goes, IMHO, don't bother with it. It really isn't worth it. There are plenty of much better IDEs out there, and most are free. I really like Aptana, but have switched to Microsoft WebMatrix. I know a good number of designers who love Visual Studio, and Notepad++ is always a good fallback.

 

[wicasso]

As far as CMS goes... what's the best way to create a website, and then use a CMS to handle it? Do designers typically create a website outside of a CMS, using Dreamweaver, Notepad, Photoshop, etc... and then go into the CMS and customize a theme or something to match the look of their design?

That's what I do. I start with a design (the HTML, CSS layout) from scratch and then port it to a CMS to handle it. Pick your favorite CMS. I pick the Drupal CMS because it is easy to port an existing design to a Drupal theme.

In Drupal, there are what is called "starter or base" themes that you can use to port over your HTML CSS design with ease. My favorite starter theme in Drupal is Adaptivetheme :

http://drupal.org/project/adaptivetheme

Adaptivetheme is mobile too. So when I port over my design to Adaptivetheme, my Drupal site becomes mobile instantly as a bonus!