Question

I’ve been working on a website for a while. The functionality of the site works nicely, but the graphical design looks a bit crap, so we paid a graphic designer to have a look at it for us. He has sent us a set of images – one for each page on the site – with a suggested new design. It looks pretty good, but I don’t know what to do with these images…

Do I just start messing around with the css – setting colors, sizes, etc, to make it look like the designs I have been given? Or is there a procedure I should follow? Should I badger the guy for more information about fonts, color shades, etc?

Answer 1

Usually, you need a HTML designer to create HTML/CSS for the graphic designs, so asking the designer for it might be an option. He should be able to at least provide a style guide detailing colors, fonts etc.

If you have to do it yourself, there are a couple of tools to help you:

• Firebug: The ultimate web developer helper tool
• Pixel Perfect: An add-on to Firebug, that lets you overlay an image onto the site you are developing.
• IETester: Really nice and easy testing tool for the different IE versions.
• A screen ruler: A simple tool to measure distances in images and in your site.