So I find my self up late at night stareing at my HTML program and I get writers block. then I write a little bit of content but it don't look and feel right. I was never to creative of a person to begin with but damn I figure I can at least make a web page. Nope! An hour after sitting there I just type two paragraphs and thats it. Designing a page is a pain in the ass. Anyone have any tips or tricks to get me through writers block and designers block? The only thing I do Is try and find another web page like the one I am trying to build and copy the design. (not content to the t) like paragraph here picture there. ect ect. I know this is a real stupid question but I had to ask it to get it off my chest without takin my keyboard and smashing the shit out of my moniter.
http://www.webcreme.com/ I always visit the site in my spare time, and take screenshots of the sites that I like there When I'm creating a new design, I go through the screenshots I've saved, take a few ideas that would work well with the site I'm working on, and voila
So true, same thing here. I hope the art of design comes with time and practice, otherwise I'll have to stick with copying other's websites forever, duh.
Mate, you asked my question for me. I wouldn't call it designers block in my case though, as that suggest I was able to write something at least decent at some point, but seriously, writing content just drives me up the wall, for example, I have a landing page for a web design site, and you'd think it'd be that simple to write a few paragraphs about web design, but nooo.... Im quite interested at what other people have to say to this...
@OP... I get this ALL the time... and the worst part is, that it always happens at the WORST POSSIBLE times... Like when I need to deliver a mock-up or redesign something in XX amount of time... lol I would love to hear others perspective for resolutions to this issue... The only time that I NEVER get blocked is when coding... If I'm writing a script or building an already designed site, then I just pop my head phones on and code like an animal... lol.. D'oh!
Just to clarify, are we talking about when a client has asked you to design them a site based on there business ? You cant think of a good site design or are you struggling on the actual page textual layout ?
I usually start with a color scheme and then try to build from that. Writing content is for me a beast. I usually just open up a Word Document and start writing anything until I get some kind of flow going. I'll often have several disjointed unrelated paragraphs and then start trying to join the ideas in some sort of unified structure. I'm working on a web page for my own site now and have run into a big question. The page is basically a sales page meant to get the visitor to commit and signup for the free trial period. So do I go with a very basic simple design with mostly just headline text or do I give it the blog approach? I'm thinking the headline approach is the beast choice. I'm thinking the average person doesn't want to read a page and a half of text and therefore won't get to the part where they can click on my offer. The up side of this is that I don't have to do a bunch of writing. The down side is that I don't have many opportunities to get my keywords in there.
About Designing: Its is the best option to enhance your designing skills but you should keep the following things in mind: 1. What is the purpose of the website? 2. What is the type of the website? Then think on the the design part? this wud be better for you. Content: The content on your website should be original and dynamic. Content should contains keywords but no so much, (4 -5 Keywords). When you are targeting the keywords better you need to look all the phrases and keywords. Don't use Misspell keywords in your content rather use in Meta Tags. Try to generate some creativity. If you want success in this field. Web Designing is all about new ideas and innovation.
I use Photoshop to create an image of the site first. Like a rough mockup of the design, play with colours and layouts. When i've got something I like, I save the various images used, open dreamweaver and design it. It's a hell of a lot easier to just be creative without worrying about code and make it work later than it is to try and do both at the same time