Ninjakreborn

Does anyone have advice on getting the images in there, and actually make them meld in with the background. Any advice on that would help, I made it a specific way, but I am having trouble getting them aligned.

Well, I fixed a bunch of things in photoshop, with the images, and did a bunch with the buttons, I am uploading it now, to see what you think once I get the buttons all working.  I think I found what I want, I am touching up the images more, but I think, thanks to the advice of everyone here, I have found something I can be happy with for a few months/years, until my skills are good enough with graphic design/layout design to easily come up with something better. After I align everything up, perfectly, and get the rollovers working, and everything looking good, and decreasing the size of the banner, layout out the rest of the page, I am going to lay it out on here for critique, if someone has any more advice on it so far, let me know, or way's I can make it better. Thank you for everyone that helped me get pointed in this direction.

  Look, I have worked up some of the graphics in photoshop, and created a rough cut, 2 second coded version of part of the layout, just to show you a general idea for the banner, the logo area at the top left.  The left navigation, the rollover affect with just 1 image.   Some of the images themselves are still needing worked on, the banner, at the top, has an area that looks wierd, and the left nav, above the top, has another area that looks wierd, the rollover images aren't aligned properly, but I just wanted to give you an idea of the direction I was heading to get advice if this is a good general idea.   So again please understand in general, that this is not even close to what will be on my website, I just want to find out, if this idea itself is even substantial, or even worth continuing to pursue.  I liked my ideas, I liked where this is going.  Any advice would help, I am not done even close with the graphic design, and especially the coding, but for now, I set up something quick, something in like 2 seconds to get general directional advice.   As far as the graphic design, I want the top of the banner to look a little more like the rest of it. As for the left nav, I am wanting to get the top better blended with the banner. Here are the photoshop settings I ended up going with for this. [quote]Banner Background create new, any size. Select all fill background color with 663300 texture-filter-noise-add noise (monochromatic, gaussian, 67 for the amount) filter-blur-motion blur (90 degrees, and blur of 24 pixels Logo old english text- blending options: drop shadow – opacity 0 inner shadow- opacity 100 Slogans Times new roman size 30 Left Navigation Background create new, any size. Select all fill background color with 663300 texture-filter-noise-add noise (monochromatic, gaussian, 67 for the amount) filter-blur-motion blur (90 degrees, and blur of 24 pixels[/quote] Those are just some notes I took while creating it, so I could remember what I did, to get what affects.   Below is the url http://www.freelancebusinessman.com/temp/

  I really do thank you all for the help.  I have been accepting advice, it's just I have so many ideas, I decided to come up with a theme, someone told me when you build a website create a general theme, and base everything including the logo around that theme.   As far as freelance businessman, there is no way I would ever change from that, that name is permanent.  As for the logo's both of them put up, thank you, I really appreciate the help, it gave me something to look at, I know what I am going to do for a logo.   Right now, I have spent almost 48 hours(except sleeping), looking at other websites and have an idea, for a general theme.  I have definitely picked the theme, I am slowly taking my time to learn how to do what I want to do in photoshop.  Right now, my actual website itself is going to have a white background.   This is a website this time I am building totally from scratch, if it's not 100% perfect at the end where everyone likes it, atleast I know I did my best, and this is going to be taking almost everything, all of you said under consideration while still keeping my own ideas at hand.  I know how to design, I know how to do logo's I have built them before, and layouts, and clients were happy.  At this time I think most of it was I was trying to learn to fast, instead of keeping it simple, and I was being too picky for something I wanted.   I have decided to use a general approach from now on, when building any website.  based on the intended audience, I am going to try to come up with a general theme, and color scheme and base everything I am doing around that theme.   As for my website, I have decided on a theme, and I know now I am going to use that theme, I have decided on that.  I am using a general theme, I am using roughly 2 main colors for my website, aside from something I might come up with for form styling, lists, ex-cetera.   My 2 main colors are white, and a mixture color of some form of brown.  The 2nd color is going to be some type of wood related gradient that I am going to create, as a process to make it look as good, and professional, and realistic as possible.  This white is going to be the general background color for the website, the 2nd gradient color is going to be the background color for the left navigation, top banner/logo area, and bottom navigation.  I am still creating a color idea for the basic content div in the middle.  I might also have a basic series of boxes below the left nav, for general information, and some on the right side of the content div, that will have some otehr information I decide to put.  Like a quick list for my portfolio, and some of my general skills, or services.   For the banner, it's going to be background colored with that 2nd gradient I spoke of, the logo is going to be something as a lot of people here offered advice on, something simple.  Something primarily text, that can easily be pulled out and used for various things, yet is easy to remember.  Not something too complicated, but something I am however going to put some thought, time and effort into.  I might even make a few ideas, of various font's and font positioning, and find one that I end up liking the most.  I do know one main feature of the logo itself is definitely going to be colored so it looks like it's in some way burnt into the background wood, to look as if the text had been burnt there, but still heavily readable and definable to the human eye.   Other than the logo, there will be an area on my banner, along the bottom line, I will have my 2 catch phrases. "Making websites better 1 pixel at a time" "Web designer/coder/programming"; those will be part of the banner itself, at the bottom, right along the bottom line.   That is all that will be for the banner, omst of it will be that wooden gradient, maybe a search area at the top right, for something, just to take up some room, not sure yet.   As for the left nav, it's going to have a background of the same 2nd gradient wooden texture.  For the navigation links, they are going to start off as a standard color, other than black.  Something that looks good with the wooden color, stands out well, but isn't black or brown in nature.  The hover for that imaged link, or text link is going to be something that looks like it goes from being it's original color, to being burnt into the wood behind it, sort of like the logo, with just a different affect.   The navigation may be done in text, or possibly an image, depending on which one is going to give me the effect of it looking as if it is getting burnt into the background.   The bottom navigation area is going to have a few of my basic links, like privacy policy, it's going to possibly have the same affect as the left nav.   The middle content area, and the other 3 boxes(1 box below the left nav, for validation links(yes I want those), 1 box on the right side of the middle content, with a quick portfolio area, and 1 box below that, which will have either a quick list of services/skills, or some of my stronger, strong points.  The background colors for those I am still deciding on.   This is what I have finally decided on, my own ideas, my own layouts, after looking throughout various sites, brainstorming for days, sorry for all the depression sounding stuff, it allways happens when I am brainstorming, but it got me through the process.  It wsa just harder for me, for my own website, because I have something specific I want.  Every word of advice offered on here was taken into account, and the advice was heavily headed, I appreciated it a lot.    As for general ideas, my name has to stay, I am definitely keeping my ethics page, but rewriting them.  I am removing a lot of the useless, and duplicate pages.  I am rewriting all the page content entirely, and adding a few pages, including doing some extra new work with the portfolio, there is a lot I want to do with the site, but the general ideas are done.   Now I have to make the banner, make the logo like I want with the affect I want, make the text above the line, the create the idea for the layout in photoshop, and style the rollover links(which I will probably do in css instead of javascript.) once all of that is done I can start creating all my content, then coding the Xhtml/css after that.

So then a banner, and a logo are 2 totally different things. I am starting to see that part now, I want both a banner, and logo for my site, but the logo wouldn't be the banner.  The logo would be hte actual name, or image, that I consider the logo, adn it should be something simple, most of the time something font only, or a play on words, something.  So I am going to create a simple logo, adn try to keep it simple, I am also going to create a banner, taht is more advanced, that has my 2 lines making websites better one pixel at a time, and web designer/coder/programming I will try to keep the slogans out of the logo, when I have the logo, I will be putting it up in the top left hand corner, sort of where phpfreaks logo is on there general banner.  Then my banner, is going to be 100% width, from one side of the page to another, something where I can somewhere put my 2 slogans, or my slogan, and title.  So the logo itself I am going to try and keep simple, am I starting to understand everything correctly???

I was wondering, I built that logo, I did some work with it, I am going to learn how to burn the businessman word into the leather of the briefcase, and give the font in the sword an engraved affect.  It might be a beginner photoshop logo.  I can always build another one later, I just want one for my website, I am rewriting all the content on my new website, so I am putting in there, studying photoshop/graphic design, I will put I am not that good at it, so I will do it for a cheaper price until I get better, that will allow me to get some experience doing logo's for awhile, I might even do graphic design itself for free, alongw ith my other stuff until I get better.  The designing a layout, I think I have gotten good enough with that, to do a layout in photoshop, I am going to try some ideas later, right now I want to build a logo.  I want really opinions on this, I am no matter what building more logo's.  I am going to build quite a few more, some graphic, some text only, I am learning photoshop, but I am only right now trying to get a good logo for me.  Not an expert, graphic designer logo.  But something I can be proud of at my current photoshop/graphic design skill level, it doesn't have to be a master artists logo, I also kept reading what you people said about keeping it simple, so I did, for this one, I am going to work on some more logo's but I really like this one, even after building more, unless I Find out more that I like, I might end up keeping this one?  What do you think, you asked me about letterheads and everything else, I am goign to see what this looks like later changed over to black and white, but since I Created it and not anotehr graphic designer, I feel gooda bout it, my other logo wasn't that great, but another developer did it, he was just learning, and now I am just learning I want something good, atleast until I get my skills better and redesign my site again, in 6-7 months to a year when I am confident in some of my non-programming related abilities. I am still doing more with this logo in case if I decide to use it, like the burnt affect into the leather as someone from here  mentioned earlier.  and the engraved affect into the sword, as I thought up earlier.  Also if I can come up with a good color for the bottom bar, I am going to fill that in, and change the text afffect there, and for the bottom text, I am deciding on a good font for it.  I might not use it, I might come up with something I like better, that'smore ismple, but if not I have something I think I can be happy with, I just want some advice on it, if it totally sucks ass, what can I do to make it better.  I have seen some logo's that use similar play on words, put to a picture background, and melded into the scene, it's not done yet, it's just the first draft where I got the picture of the lance head, and the briefcase, and put them where i wanted them, and created the backbone(so to speak) for the logo.  WIth what I have done there, I had learnt a lot, 10 times more than I previously knew, [attachment deleted by admin]

Thanks, I will do that, when I rebuild my site, and other's I will start messaging you to get your opinion in other browsers.

Thanks I appreciate the advice, I will consider everything over the weekend, as I work more toward learning photoshop.

I might for this one logo, I will see about it, but atleast I learnt something about photoshop, I may try a few more logo's here and there and see if I can come up with something.

THanks andy, and everyone else for the advice.  I finally tried, I am more creative than I thought, during this process I learnt so much about photoshop.  even if this logo isn't good I can recreate another one off another idea, of try agian, this has taught me so much. 1. I am more creative than I thought 2. I just need time for my creativity to kick in 3. I learnt a lot about photoshop blending stuff 4. I learnt about free transform, and transform selection and how different things work different. I may never be a full graphic designer, but I know now, after some work, patience, and trying I can atleast do stuff like logo's for clients, banners, layouts, buttons, I definitely have an idea for my buttons on this site, I just have to get better. What do you think of this logo, should I add a background color, is there anything else I can do to it, to make it look better, or should I scrap it and try again. [attachment deleted by admin]

I have come up with a logo idea, I am associating my name with pictures, something simple, something that can help them remember my name, I will show it later in another post, after I get the first design stages up for my site.

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So should I, or should I not work up some picutre, right now I had a lance, and i was putting clouds throughout the background, and carefully working with the photo, I was going to do the freelancebusinessman thing in it, or should I jsut find a good text logo, and look around some, what do you think?

I see what you are saying, but if that is true, what about these people that do it all.  I am not asking to be a "graphic designer" necessarily.  I am asking to be able to do what I need to create a layout, which to tell you the truth I have been practicing at, doing layouts in photoshop, and doing buttons have gotten easy to me, I can do those very well now, and the buttons actually look good, they actually look like they are something people would look at and like. As for design, to tell you the truth I have gotten a lot better with color schemes and general design, adn things of that nature.  I don't want to be a master of all trades, a worker of all things, I just want to master my one field, what is wrong with that.  As far as graphic designer, I just want to be able to make layouts, banners, logos, and buttons at this point. I am not worried about buttons, or layouts anymore, I have gotten good at those.  And if you want to know the truth I have ever gotten good at banners in general when I know what they want the banner for, but it's just something to do with my own site, I have 2 ideas, I am going to make them happen in photoshop and get some opinions here. I am taking the first idea and makeing a briefcase, or something similar, with freelance businessman burned in the back, the other ideas is to have a picture of a lance, probably one I am going to create, and have it across the logo. it is going to have free above the lance, lance, engraved within the lance and businessman below it, but sort of each section to the side like this Free       Lance               Businessman but the free is going to be above the lance ,lance is going to be engraved within the picture of the lance, and businessman will be below it, this is one of the 2 ideas I am brainstorming over. I am working on that lately.  As far as buttons, and layout I have gotten 3 times better at that, and learnt a hell of a lot about color schemes as well.

Your right, but how, I mean I can go and sit down and create a logo, I have a few ideas, and I can probably create them if I try, but I know people won't like them, or I feel that way. I have the idea he gave me up there, or the idea, another one I have is a lance, and the words freelance businessman sitting atop the lance, or free above it, lance engraved within it, and businessman back up at the top, or bottom, I have some ideas, I am just not sure how it's all going to turn out, I really want to do this, I really want to become more than just a programmer, I am rewriting all my content, being a lot more honest about anything I have not been honest about, change all business practices, and start anew.  I have gotten very good at programming, I don't doubt that at all, but I want to get good at design, pretty good at graphic design, I just want to be able to build a site from the ground up, and be able to do it good, I want to learn, I want to finally build my own site, completely from the ground up, and more than anything, have people on php freaks, say they like it, point out a few issues and other than that it's great, like they do with most of the sites that pop up on here, most of my clients are happy with my site, or they wouldn't hire me, they definitely end up being happy with there own sites, but that's not enough for me, I want more than that, I want to be better than just average, I want people to look at my stuff, and say like they do with other sites, it looks good, you could probably do this, and this and this, but other than that, it looks great, or something.

That's where I fall short, I could create 50 logo's and look at them all, and pick my favorite 5, but that doesn't mean there any good, I don't mean 5 minute logo's I mean ones I set down and really took the time to build properly.

I will use that as one of my ideas, I scraped all current logo's I am creating about 20 logo's not randomly but over the next few months, while I work on planning, and content writing.  Then I will have a drop down menu where the logo's can be changed, or a place where atleast I can change it, and have a display page of all the logo's I have created for my site.  I don't know which yet, I m ay just allow the user to decide which logo they would like to see, and have the default one as my favorite.

yes but 5-10 people on here said to use template, 5-10 people on here said not to use templates, it's confusing sort of.

I have had an idea now, I don't know about a logo, but when I build my site, I am going to have a drop down menu, it's going to have about 40 logo's if someone doesn't like my logo they can change it.  I am creating a couple of better logo ideas myself right now, so I am going to see how that goes, but I am going to do a few things differently, the drop down menu, will have every logo idea I ever had, and will default at the one that was liked the most, then if someone doesn't want to see it, they can just change logo's I am tired of fighting with the logo thing.

Do you consider templates good to use or not.  How many people on here use templates all the time, or just for a few websites.  Should I use one just for my personal site, I seem to do allright when it's for a client, but when it's for me I always get stuck, any advice?

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Ok, this is where I need clarification. As far as logo's go, what looks good and what looks bad generally.  I have seen websites with banners, and logo's like big banners across the top, with very complicated logo's and they end up being extremely popular.  I also have seen some basic logos, some get ahold of an idea and go with it, but some logo's are considered "good" and some are considered "bad".  Give me something to go by, something to work with, I didn't do these, my graphic designer did, I am getting to where I can do some stuff with graphic design and photoshop, but I have to learn what is good and what is bad as far as logo's and buttons are concerned, I am already getting better at layouts, and I have been studying color schemes, for a few days now, and getting better at it.  I am pretty sure I am doing a white background on my site this time, I have a lot of ideas for everything.  The thing is, I am not using a template at all but building the entire thing from scratch.  I want to get an idea of something for a logo, everyone I ask so far(clients), say I shouldn't change logo's because that one looks good, but I don't know if my current logo is good or not, and if not then what can I do about logo's. Should they always be just text, or should you try crazy fonts, one clients wanted a "psychotic font with one letter a middle finger", so what exactly is good, and what exactly is bad,.

Ok, yes give me just a few minutes, let me get the psd's up, then I will do jpg conversions, and upload htem too. Ok I have put up all of my pictures.  If you like any of the logo's give me advice on them, if I find more than 1 I like then I will make a user module so the visitor can change out the logo's and save the results using sessions or something, but for now I need to get a good logo, what do you think?

yes, one second and I will upload them.