 |
|
  |
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Topic : "Good interface design how to sites?" |
HellSpawn
member
Member #
Joined: 02 Jan 2001
Posts: 112
Location: Montreal
|
 Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 10:56 am |
 |
 |
Greetings all,
I'm being sucked into that area of interface designing lately and wonder if anyone knows of some really good interface how to design sites? You know the kind that show's you how to do auqa type buttons and stuff like that. Really high end design stuff like the boys over at www.theskinsfactory.com are doing.
the few I know are pretty much old school now... like:
Eyeball design
Phong
Ozone
Thanks,
- Shawn
Last edited by HellSpawn on Tue Jan 21, 2003 3:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:05 am |
|
|
so err. you're looking for tutorials on "designing interfaces" like the step-by-step instructions in those (cough) "old school" sites you mentioned? now that's some designing.. doing exact replicas of things hundreds of thousands of others have already done a couple of years ago...
please, be creative. design is NOT following step-by-step guides. design is NOT making what everyone else does just so you could call yourself a designer. define design? designers don't do that. (sorry, a cliche, but had to be said.)
apply a bridge and a rope if you can't get your creative side going and still want to be a 'designer'.
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
Gort
member
Member #
Joined: 09 Oct 2001
Posts: 1545
Location: Atlanta, GA
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:31 am |
|
|
The sites you've listed are very good sites for high visual impact, but often this approach is not the best. Before really considering the look of any UI, the audience must be first determined. If you're a graphic designer and your intended audience is design firms, then you might want to exert a bit more creative muscle, but if your intent is to sell books, then you'd best take a more streamlined and simple approach.
The problem with web design today is that there exists an air of divisionism. One side is the super-creative side that designs almost for the sake of design; the problem with that approach is that the message doesn't get effectively communicated, because the user is barraged with too much stimuli. The other side is the user-centric side; this approach places the user experience above all else and then designs accordingly; often the results are not as whizbang as we creative types would prefer.
So the challenge is to find the right balance between the two sides. As a designer I personally like to do work that shines, but if I have a large, broad audience to target then I have to pull back some.
If you're seriously getting into web based UI design, then I would suggest the following:
http://www.lukew.com/
http://www.boxesandarrows.com
http://www.alistapart.com/index.html
http://www.k10k.net/
http://www.designinteract.com/
Faust is right - there is no real "step by step"; sometimes you just have to get downright dirty - dive in and learn from your mistakes. I would suggest that you look at what UI design firms are doing; take notes; study Mueller Brockmann's Grid Systems for Graphic Design. Subscribe to or buy Communication Arts - read and study - look at what others are doing in terms of effectiveness and user experience. Look for the balance.
_________________
- Tom Carter
"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield |
|
| Back to top |
|
HellSpawn
member
Member #
Joined: 02 Jan 2001
Posts: 112
Location: Montreal
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:47 am |
|
|
Jesus faustgfx chillout...
I don't plan on doing the copy and paste routine. I've been doing some interface design for small programs for my company (that's real life work where you get paid). Anyway out clients want "cool, hip, new age, edge, type of stuff". It's not my thing but hey if there paying for it and want it fine. We all can't live in our parent�s basement being creative geniuses like you faustgfx.
Read my post again and don�t be so damn hostile. I'm just looking for some how to tips. Shit, faustgfx have you ever asked anyone for help with a characters anatomy for a painting you did? Did you ever get blasted for asking for some advice or tips?
If you dont want to give me any suggestion on where I can go to see what's new and cool and site's on how to's then I please ask you to keep you mama's basement boy opinions to yourself. |
|
| Back to top |
|
shawnhud
member
Member #
Joined: 04 Dec 2002
Posts: 121
Location: Northern Virginia, USA
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:58 am |
|
|
Wrong or right, just go to:
http://www.eyeball-design.com/page08.htm
There's two sections to the whole thing, but I think this is what you're loking for. At the very least you'll get some ideas.
_________________
Put a muzzle on her Turkish, before she gets bit. You don't wanna get bit, do you boy? |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:04 pm |
|
|
yo, fuck you. it's not my fault you are essentially asking how to copy others' work so you could get paid - and you're actually asking on a very public forum for links where to "learn how to design interface" ...
this mama's basement boy has a bit over 8 years of history in web/multimedia packages/realtime 3d stuff/whatever in things like interfaces.. a considerable amount of that has been paying work and i have never ever had to resort to begging for tutorial links on forums - or having to work by tutorials to get ideas and whatever in the first place. "boohoo i work as a graphic artist but i can't do anything on my own so i have to ask for tutorials on a forum cause i can't even use google". so fuck you and go stick your half assed insults up your own ass or better yet, cram them deep down to the hellhole you spawned from along with your self and never rear your head to the world again.
i was going to post something that could be considered helpful.. but then i accidentally refreshed this reply page thingy and noticed your reply, so i'm just gonna settle with 'fuck you'.
bitch.
my mother doesn't have a basement btw, she lives in a city highrise flat.
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
HellSpawn
member
Member #
Joined: 02 Jan 2001
Posts: 112
Location: Montreal
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:24 pm |
|
|
Hahaha, that's good...
So is it like a right of passage to be flamed by faustgfx on the Sijun forums? Only took two years on this forum to get my first flame war.
Oh and thanks again faustgfx for your wonderful insights, nice website you have. I guess they forgot to put "design" on my Nova Scotia Collage of Art and Design, Graphic Arts & Design "Degree".
I dont want to get anyone off on a differnt subject... But to be clear what I was looking for is just some quick how to tutorials in PS for cut litttle interface designs. Buttons ect. I mostly do textures, 3d, concept art. So it's a new area for me. And as most artist's do before doing a project they "research" to see what's out there and and what's in and out.
Thanks in advance for any help.
- Shawn
P.S. Love ya faustgfx  |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:49 pm |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Oh and thanks again faustgfx for your wonderful insights, nice website you have. |
thanks. gimme one single reason why i should waste time into making a website? i have nothing to prove or display, and i'd rather i had never done any of it. i also don't want to display old and worn shit there, people have seen them enough already. i have done over 100 different "designs" and versions of my website and i've gotten really really sick of staring at my own work.. hence how i have not had a website up in any form since i left mediaclick.
| Quote: |
| I guess they forgot to put "design" on my Nova Scotia Collage of Art and Design, Graphic Arts & Design "Degree". |
too bad. i guess you should have taken elementary school english grammar basics instead. collage? whatever. you've gone to some fancy school and gotten fancy papers yet you can't figure out a simple computer graphics program and can't make simple shiny balls with it.... what a way to spend probably years of your life and tons of cash into such education. sure, it might be an impressive line in your cv, and a quality school, but ya still can't use photoshop so i'm not impressed.
| Quote: |
| But to be clear what I was looking for is just some quick how to tutorials in PS for cut litttle interface designs. Buttons ect. |
sorry to jump the subject and change topics, but i'm a firm believer in the diy school in photoshop.. that is, draw everything by hand. masks, airbrush, burn/dodge, whatever. really. looking at some tutorial where some guy goes MAKE A ROUND SELECTION AND APPLY A GRADIENT SLOPE LIKE THIS AND THEN ADD A ROUND HIGHLIGHT HERE -> X is so limiting. i've come up with much better results when i've done things by hand instead of using photoshop's quite limited tools for "making shiny interfaces". especially if you're into textures you should be quite familiar with being able to convey a certain sense of half assed depth and dimensions in a small 2d image.. so i assume you can make a ball that looks like chrome or something like that with one round selection, 50 airbrush trokes and maybe an extra layer for highlights and fake reflections.
while it takes practice to make fancy-phong.com-spheres by just airbrushing (meaning organic 'drawn' versus clinic and exactly cut vectors and gradients and crap) and make it look good, it's a fact that once you master it, it will simply.. look better in the end. many of the fancyshinyinterfacewarriors who try to copy phong and whomever fall for that, most of the stuff looks so clinic and dead. it doesn't even look like plastic of glass or whatever, it just looks like gradients.
so whether you like it or not and want to try it or not, my advice would be to fuck the whole tutorial thing and learn to do the shiny fancy stuff by hand.
what comes to user interface layouts and shit.. a few years ago i bought a david carson typography book (end of print) and started digging up stuff the guy had done from the web. while his often quite erratic and chaotic typographic brainfarts might have nothing to do with user interfaces, the way he does page layouts for magazines, arranges wild text with photos and whatever, and it proved quite inspirational. i can't remember apart form the nin/the fragile stuff a single thing the guy has done that has 90 degree cut paragraphs and cleanly and precisely placed and spaced image/text layouts. his work is quite inspiring (at least to me) and made me realize and fully understand this thing.. if you're gonna make interfaces or layouts that rely on graphics, make the graphics work and fit in dynamically and seamlessly with the rest of the web page or whatever it is you might be working on. it's really horrible when someone has his page divided into two completely and utterly different and differenting elements.. some fancy ui image and content text and they have nothing to do with each other.
http://www.2design.org ..costinak's work i like. the website stuff for activision etc. he's been doing the stuff for quite a while and he used to be a source of inspiration.. that 's the only url i can give now. i've gotten pretty much clear of them online graphics scenes and am not keeping track of all the fancy websites nowadays.. haven't done that for about two years now. but costinak's work i do really like. it isn't groundbreaking and it isn't cutting edge avant garde postfuturistic new form of art, but it's mostly damn solid work. the thing i like most about him is that he is never out of ideas what to do, and he knows his photoshop well enough...
if i suddenly remember some sites i could link you to and say 'that's neat, there's neat gui stuff there,', i will post it here later tonight. but if i don't, remember, fuck you.
yours truly,
the guy who isn't a god damn art hippie like you.
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
HellSpawn
member
Member #
Joined: 02 Jan 2001
Posts: 112
Location: Montreal
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 1:58 pm |
|
|
Thanks faustgfx,
You gave some great feedback that time. I'm serious, no kindding. I didn't think I would touch a nerve and get the reaction I got by asking for some quick how too sites. I work for a company that designs casino games and websites. I design the casino games and web based games. I haven't done a website in over 5 years now and I'm out of touch with in what's in. my company has a presentaion to do, and they need some design work for.... wait for it...... Penthouse and it's due on Friday and I was asked to help the web department come up with some ideas. That's all... if you want to see what I really do check out my new post in the Finished Galley. I posted 2 of my latest concept designs I did for an up coming game, and I would love to get some feedback like you wrote in your last post.
http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?p=300524#300524
I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot faustgfx. Just that I wish it didn't take a flame war to get some good feedback from you.
Cheers,
- Shawn
Last edited by HellSpawn on Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:10 pm |
|
|
six hours to louisiana, black coffee going cold...
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
tayete
member
Member #
Joined: 03 Dec 2000
Posts: 656
Location: Madrid, Spain
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:26 pm |
|
|
Mmmmm...Faust, I think you have too much free time. I envy you.
_________________
_ _ _____ _ _
http://tayete.blogspot.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:30 pm |
|
|
my life is sleep, irc, cigarettes and killing time. sitting on my ass. wondering where my friends have disappeared. wondering if something's gonna happen next week. wondering what to do, where to go, and where have i lost the last one and half a year of my life.. apparently a chair and these monitors. the daily adventure & danger highlight is listening to some nice music album. and reading about rock stars, biographies and stories and stuff. i can't remember anything and i seem to focus on things i do every few hours or so. i think i'm developing some sort of dementia here. there's easy chilling life and then there's emptiness. but enough of that, wrong place and wrong time. envy all you wish, i wouldn't.
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
Matthew
member
Member #
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 3784
Location: I am out of here for good
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:50 pm |
|
|
| Kind of crazy actually, my Situation is kind of similar. |
|
| Back to top |
|
luggage
junior member
Member #
Joined: 21 Oct 2001
Posts: 23
Location: Sweden
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:51 pm |
|
|
Good book about things to think about on a very low level of the interface design... "Mullet & Sano - Designing visual interfaces" 0-13-303389-9
It's not about making things look nice but about what works with people, and after you know about it feel free to break all the rules but you should know that you are breaking them and why. |
|
| Back to top |
|
haohmaru
member
Member #
Joined: 09 Jan 2001
Posts: 206
Location: graz | austria
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 2:59 pm |
|
|
| HellSpawn wrote: |
I guess they forgot to put "design" on my Nova Scotia Collage of Art and Design, Graphic Arts & Design "Degree".
|
this is sad. this is just so goddamn sad. and there is me still standing here, wondering where all the disrespect for designers is coming from.
sorry, but i had to say that.
one more note: your personal site closely resembles another one i am visiting quite regularly.
[sarcasm]if i could just remember the link...[/sarcasm]
...and with this i'm gone from this thread.
_________________
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
faustgfx
member
Member #
Joined: 15 Mar 2000
Posts: 4833
Location: unfortunately, very near you.
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 3:17 pm |
|
|
like designing visuals/art has much to do with technical skill and knowing your media..
edit.. the point is lost somewhere between my head and my fingers. i shrug. i once knew a guy who had a terrific sense of color and tone balance, for things like creating comfortable layouts for dinner tables, office spaces, note boards, 3d scenes like a restaurant and placing all sorts of plants and posters and bottles and glasses and trinkets and details everywhere.. the guy didn't know how to do 3d, or textures, or how to work 3dsmax which i was using at the time. but he just had this knack for arranging things so that they were just.. comfortable to look at. in a way no-one else managed to do it. it was really really odd working with a guy like that who wasn't a part of the artist team, but had this weird trait. i would often just call him a smart-ass but once i tried the stuff he suggested, it was annoying to realize he was right. he had not studied anything related to art in any way, he was just an ordinary office worker guy. photoshop was hebrew to him. he didn't understand the products we made at the company. he didn't have to and he didn't want to.
what relevance this has to anything is beyond me. i don't know. don't read it. just like i don't want to write it but sometimes you just have to.. type things. like small stories, except this isn't a story, but true happenings.
pulling out of ricardo and the dusk is falling fast, wichita lineman was a song i once heard.
_________________
"hey, wanna dance?"
"do i look like kevin costner to you?
"..no you don't"
"i don't dance with wolves either." |
|
| Back to top |
|
B0b
member
Member #
Joined: 14 Jul 2002
Posts: 1807
Location: Sunny Dorset, England
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 1:28 am |
|
|
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2005 phpBB Group
|
