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The web design process: part 1

Everyone always preaches that the “process” is so important, but they never actually go into details on what the process is! Don’t get me wrong, I think having a process is critical to designing an effective website. The goal of this post is to outline a step by step guide for designing a website – from initial concept to launch.

Overview

I’m going to start by listing all the parts of my design process. Let me state here that there are many design processes, this just happens to be the one that I’ve found works best for me.

» Defining the end goal
» Navigation planning and sitemap
» Hand-drawn rough layout
» Photoshop comps
» Review comps to ensure the end goal has been met
» Coded comps (alpha)
» Dynamic content integration
» Browser testing
» Launch checklist
» Soft launch (beta)
» Launch and promotion
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Most Popular Posts From 2008

Have you recently discovered Cardeo Design Blog? If so, here’s a great way to jump into some of my best content. Below are a list of the most popular posts from 2008. It’s also a great resource if you are a returning reader. Happy New Year to everyone!

Most Popular Posts on Cardeo Design Blog for 2008

#1 Cardeo Minimal WordPress Theme
The free Minimal theme has been my most popular post and WordPress freebie for 2008. Make sure you go download it, if you haven’t already.

#2 Cardeo Minimal Website Template
So you guys like Minimal websites eh? The #2 post for 2008 is a website template based on the Minimal WordPress Theme. Also a free download, go and get it!

#3 How To Create a Single Image CSS Navigation Matrix
This is a tutorial on how to create an image based navigation with only CSS and 1 image. Check out www.apple.com or the demo to see this baby in action.

#4 Cardeo Mini WordPress Theme
This is another free Minimal WordPress Theme that is available for download.

#5 Free Christmas Vector Pack
This was the second of two vector packs I released in 2008. It was a great success and I plan to release more free vector packs in 2009!

#6 How to Add a Twitter Badge to Your Website
This tutorial is a quick explanation on how you can add a custom Twitter badge to your own website.

#7 Cardeo Public WordPress Theme
Public was the second free WordPress theme released in 2008. Like the most of my themes, it features a minimal layout, twitter integration, and flickr photostream integration.

#8 Barack Obama T-Shirts
2008 was the year of Obama. I tried to do my little part by designing some shirts and selling them on zazzle.com. I plan to donate the proceeds of the sales once a check is requested.

#9 Free Music Vector Pack
The first of two free vector packs I released in 2008. A rock n’ roll theme for all the Cardeo readers.

#10 Cardeo Standard WordPress Theme
Last but not least, my first WordPress theme. Cardeo Standard is a free theme based on Swiss graphic design and typography

How To Create A Single-Image CSS Navigation Matrix

Using a single-image CSS navigation matrix is a great way to build a nav bar that is light on images and relies primarily on CSS. We will use CSS to plot out the coordinates of each button and define it’s click-state. I recently used this technique for the re-design of yoursole.com (not live yet). Probably the most well known website that uses this type of navigation bar is apple.com.
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