The first step to building your website is gaining access to graphics software. If you’ve researched graphic software in the past, you’ll notice the hefty price tag related to it. Spending the extra money, sometimes, is the best option for developing high end websites. However, I’ve found that the talent is in the designer, not in the tools that he or she uses. Before we get started, I want to make sure that you have a solid graphics editor because it goes hand in hand to building the best website you can.
Adobe Photoshop is THE industry standard in graphic design. I, personally, own and use Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 Premium to do all of my website development on. When you go to purchase the suite, however, you’ll notice that the price tag is a hefty $1,799.00. I would like to recommend this application suite if you can afford it, because it will help you go much farther professionally.
Design Secret
Educational Discounts – If you are a student or teacher and have a “.edu” e-mail address, you can purchase this software from Journey Ed, who gives a substantial discount on this software, and other software mentioned in this book.
Design Secret
Open Source Software – If you are not a student, this software is too expensive for you, or if you are simply looking for something free, than I have designed a portion of this course specifically for you. There is a new movement growing fast in the Information Technology world and that is the Open Source movement. Thanks to the effort of many software developers, you can now do virtually any work you could ever imagine absolutely free. There are a couple pieces of Open Source software which I would like you to download and install before we get started. ?
Graphic Design Editor – GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)
- Go to http://www.gimp.org/
- Click Downloads and scroll down to where it says: “Binaries for various platforms” and click UNIX, Windows, or MacOS X. For demonstrational purposes in this book, we are going to use the Microsoft Windows platform.
- Select the “Automated Installer” and select “Download” in the left menu
- If you are running Windows XP or higher, you need to download “The GIMP for Windows” and download the “GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment”. You will need to install the runtime environment first. Note that the GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment is in a ZIP file and you will need to extract that ZIP file and double click on the installation file and install it. Then you will double click the GIMP installation file and install it as well. ?
