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Asked: 2026-05-15T11:56:56+00:00

I’m in the design phase of a medium-sized PHP web application (not a static

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I’m in the design phase of a medium-sized PHP web application (not a static website). Since I’m a programmer with the creativity of an eggplant I’d like to contract with a freelancer to design the look and feel of the application. What deliverable should I ask for from the designer? HTML files? PHP files? How do I apply the look and feel from the designer to my app?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Ask for:

    • HTML Files
    • CSS Files
    • tableless design – it is much easier to update CSS files than it is to update tables. Note that this advice is only that you should avoid the use of tables for organizing pages’ layouts. For organizing data in a tabular manner, tables are definitely still the best option.
    • Image Files (all the jpg’s/gif’s or whatever the case may be)
    • cut (<—- this is important) PSD files so you can easily edit image content and replace images. Other similar formats such as GIMP could be acceptable too.

    Once it’s time to integrate the deisgn into your application, you want to separate the design from your logic and database access. This makes maintenance easier later on, and also will make it easier to make changes as you develop the application.

     – Although the specifics of which ones you should use are outside the scope of this answer, note that there are many frameworks and paradigms (MVC frameworks, content management systems, etc) which facilitate the separation of the logic.

    A simple way to separate the logic from the design is to simply set up variables in PHP files, and then include the appropriate files for the design (which should also be php, or phtml files as you’ll see below). Also, you should take any sections of the page that recur in many pages and have those as a separate php file which you can include in other pages. For example…

    Bad Way (do NOT do this!):

    //File: itemsPage.php:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Our items</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <?php
            echo "<ol>";
            $itemsResult = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM items ORDER BY id LIMIT 10");
            while ($item=mysql_fetch_array($itemsResult)){
                echo "<li>".$item['name']." - ".$item['description']."</li>";
            }
            echo "</ol>";
        ?>
        <br><br>
        Affiliates: Microsoft | Bob's Home Furnishing Store | <a href="http://www.example.com/affiliates.php">become an affiliate</a>
    </body>
</html>

    Better Way:

    //File: itemsPage.php
<?php
    $title='Our Items';
    include('header.php');
    include('items.php');
    include('footer.php');
?>

    …

    //File: header.php
<html>
    <head>
        <title><?php echo $title?></title>
    </head>
    <body>

    …

    //File: items.php
<?php
    $itemsResult = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM items ORDER BY id LIMIT 10");
    $items=array();
    while ($item=mysql_fetch_array($itemsResult))
       $items[]=$item;

    include('items.phtml');
?>

    …

    //File: items.phtml
<ol>
    <?php foreach ($items as $item){?>
        <li><?php echo $item['name']?> - <?php echo $item['description']?></li>
    <? } ?>
</ol>

    …

    //File: footer.php
        <br><br>
        Affiliates: Microsoft | Bob's Home Furnishing Store | <a href="http://www.example.com/affiliates.php">become an affiliate</a>
    </body>
</html>

    Best way:
    As hinted at above, the best way to go about this is to use a framework (Zend, etc), which will be designed to make things as organized and easy as possible for you.

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