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Allen Huffman
alsplace@pobox.com
PO Box 7634
Des Moines, IA 50323
(515) 999-0227
101,032 visits (107 today, 689 this week, 1,111 this month, 1,111 this year) [152 yesterday. Best day was 171 visitors]
Although I am not looking for a job specifically doing web design, I have been designing web pages since 1995. Unfortunately, web technology has moved well beyond the basic legacy skills I have to offer but learning is easy.
Web Design Background:
For years all web sites were produced by hand using HTML code. I wrote a series of PC programs to help automate the process including template processing utilities. After acquiring a Macintosh in 1998, production slowly moved to site building tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver yet a knowledge of HTML is still very important to overcome limitations in visual page building software.
Personal Design Philosophy:
Limiting an audience is generally a bad idea. For this reason, I design my pages so they are viewable by both Windows PCs and Apple Macintosh and in an assortment of browsers including Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, OmniWeb, and WebTV. All content is designed to be scalable from the smallest viewer (WebTV) on up to a large full screen PC/Mac display.
It is also important to ensure proper ALT tags are used for all images (for the limited audience without graphics enabled and for Internet Explore mouseover text).
Whenever possible, browser specific HTML code and "fluff" JavaScript should be avoided. In most cases, similar effects can be created using standard methods. The closer the code to HTML 3.2/4.0 specs, the more visitors can view the site.
Plug-ins are useful, but telling a site visitor "go away and download something before you can come back" can be a bad move. When plug-ins are required, there should always be an alternative set of pages for visitors who do not (or cannot) use the required plug-in.
Originality is very important. Using the same buttons, icons, or animated "e-mail" graphics that are found elsewhere dilutes the imagery of the site. Site visitors should remember unique things about your site and not be thinking "oh, that's the same animated envelope that I saw on that awful personal page".
Web Site Design Credits:
The following is a list of some of the sites I have designed over the past several years using Macromedia's Dreamweaver / Fireworks Studio:
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AtTheFaire.com
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A personal project. AtTheFaire features a photo album of over 30,000 digital pictures and hundreds of pages of content dealing with Midwest renaissance festivals and events. The site is regularly updated during event season. The layout was originally modeled after sites such as Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com. Stats: 765 HTML pages |
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DisneyFans.com
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Personal photography site featuring over 30,000 digital photos and a small assortment of articles. This site also is modeled after sites such as Amazon.com. Stats: 335 HTML pages |
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FestInt.com
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Festivals International (Clear Lake, IA) is an entertainment company that produces various festivals across America and also acts as a talent coordination agency. This simple site was put together as part of a package deal ($100 for a simple site, domain name, and one year of hosting) just to get this company on the web. As such, it is a very basic design. Since the original site was done, other sites were created for the Nebraska Renaissance Faire, Des Moines Renaissance Faire, and Iowa Renaissance Festival. Stats: 26 HTML pages |
There are dozens of other sites I have collaborated on including personal pages, business sites, and sections of my former employer's intranet.
Each site is completely designed from the ground up with no "cookie cutter" templates. All navigational graphics, titles, etc. are 100% custom made with the exception of a few font dingbats and free icons. This amount of work is equivalent of producing several pages a day every day for the past two years and it does not take into consideration the work that is done on updates and redesigns.
The Final Word:
Web design is a passion for me and I am always learning new things to apply to my site building. Some of the hardest workers you will find are those who enjoy doing their "job" as much for work as for a hobby.
Sound interesting? Let's talk.