Eye of Designs

Alas, this is not the long awaited tutorial I was writing for matching a background and header on a blog. Instead I wanted to do a quick write up on one of the greatest tools I’ve discovered for learning how CSS and HTML effect what’s on your web page.

There is an add on for Firefox called Firebug. Once installed you can right click on any part of a web page and select “Inspect Element”. Like this:

Once you choose to Inspect an Element it will bring up a window at the bottom of your screen showing you what the HTML and CSS are for that element, like so:

Firebug Shows you the Code

Let’s take a closer at what you can see navigating through Firebug. These two screens appear side by side normally, I’ve broken them into two part for ease of viewing:

The long of the short of it is installing Firebug into Firefox is quick and easy and it has been an invaluable help in figuring out how to clean up the layouts on my sites (especially when learning from templates, which so many beginners do). Get in there and check it out. I’m sure you will all find tons of uses for it!

Get the add on at: Firebug

While this doesn’t pertain to design, it does pertain to be a lifelong student and I thought some folks might appreciate it. Check out: ;Academic Earth. You can view videos of lectures from some of the top universities in the United States.

I’ve a big first post on getting started in web design and graphic design coming up next week (I need the weekend to write it, alas for the day job eating away my life). But for now, feed on some of the knowledge over at Academic Earth, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

I will not dispute, not for one moment, that there are many situations where formal education is the only thing that can really train you for certain jobs. I also will not dispute that there are many amazing graphic and web designers out in the world looking for work- also, for major projects a professional is your best choice (you can probably find some great folks here. They are all very nice and seem to know what they’re talking about.)

However, there are some situations where some people might be looking for something a little different. Perhaps you’re interested in playing with the ideas of WAGD (that’s a new acronym I just made up for Web and Graphic Design) while you try to decide if it’s something you might be interested in pursuing a career in. Perhaps you just need help with that one logo project your boss dumped in your lap after he saw some nice sketches you did. Perhaps you are a life-long learner, interested in discovering something new. Whatever your reasoning, this blog is about self-education in WAGD.

Tutorials and How To's

One Off’s or Tutorial Seekers: Tutorials

For those of you looking for tutorials and lessons (from the more abstract “what are the uses of a line” type topics or for more practical “how do I add a dropshadow in Adobe Illustrator” type topics) you can browse through the Tutorials by Dawson and Tutorials by others categories, where I will have my tutorials and reviews and recommendations of other’s tutorials available.

Chronicles

Learning From Scratch: Chronicles

For those of you with a more passionate intent to learn top to bottom, or those interested in my personal process through all this I recommend starting in the Chronicles and working your way through. There I will document progress and process for self-education in the field of web and graphic design. It will include links out to all the exercises and tutorials, but will have a more story-like, in depth documentation of my journey along this path.

Regardless of why you’re here, welcome and I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I intend to.

The Eye of Designs blog is going to chronicle whatever useful information I learn in my adventures learning about graphic design and web design. There are many amazing tutorials out there to learn from and I’ll try to share the great ones that I find as well as any interesting news in the industry and my own take on Graphic and Web Design.

This blog was inspired by a quote I read on a board where someone was asking what good web references there are to learn Graphic Design:

“Design isn’t something you can ‘learn’… It’s like music. Either you have it or you don’t”

My response to this is the creation of this blog. All skills are learned skills. From plumbing to art to music (by the way, every musician starts out knowing nothing).
Statements like the above are what have continually limited opportunity for those not born to a family of artists or taught from a young age “artistic” skills. These skills are just that: skills- neither mythical nor god-given. Work, practice, and training can grace anyone with the skills of this trade. While style is developed by each individual personally over time, the skills have their roots in a learnable trade. It is those roots I wish to explore here at Eye of Designs.

I hope that people will come with on this journey and find some use of each article, whether for development in self-study of the trade or for one-shot application to a quick project in a hobby or different career field.