Help in designing a layout

[ex_bibbinut154]

HI
I'm new here and would like some advice/help in designing a layout for my journal.
Somewhat familiar with CSS and learning more about it everyday.
I've been looking at several layouts here at DW, very, very nice designs.
I'm going to be doing web page design for my own computer consulting business in the future and am taking a course in the Spring. Have some knowledge of html.
I often read the the source codes on webpages to get some ideas... ;)
I'd also like to design some mood themes too.
Where does one do that? Here?
Thanks! :D

edit: Saw the links here. Going to take a very close look at those.

Would also like to hear from people here how long it took them to design a layout and any tips would be very helpful.

Those links for the Tabula Rasa, etc. are very, very helpful.

Thanks again! :)

Comments

[timeasmymeasure]

The longest and most challenging part is taking apart the code and understanding what each part does, what you need and don't need. After that, it's mostly a matter of rearranging and tweaking the code to what you want it to be. It's a language; hardest part is understanding what everything means before it starts to make sense.

[ex_bibbinut154]

Good advice. :)
I also like learning languages. Am fluent in German and English and also know French and Spanish.
Wonder if it's similar. ;) LOL *just kidding*

[foxfirefey]

So, life ate me and I haven't done classes for a while, though I want to continue at some point, but if you're going to be doing CSS-based layouts, you can probably get pretty far going through the lessons up here already:

http://style-system.dreamwidth.org/tag/!style+making+class

Start from the bottom and work up!

[ex_bibbinut154]

Thanks! :)
Going to bookmark that link .
Got some ideas in my head already! ;)

[branchandroot]

If you'd like to submit any of your layouts as official designs, take a look at dreamscapes. We can always use new layouts!

My recommendation would be to start with Tabula Rasa and see what you can do with it. If you use TR as your base, then all the column layout is done for you and you don't have to worry about it. If, after that, you find there are extra things you want to do, things that might require messing around in the programming code to change where page elements actually appear in the html, then you can ease into S2.

[ex_bibbinut154]

Thank You. :)

[ninetydegrees]

If you start with Tabula Rasa, http://www.dreamwidth.org/doc/s2/ links to some good articles about its CSS structure. I've also made my own little memo here.
As timeasmymeasure said, the longest part is figuring out what each part does and how it's called. :)

About mood themes, I haven't seen a community for custom ones so maybe you could create it! Also to upload any you've created you can go to http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/moodthemes but I think this is reserved to paid users.

[ex_bibbinut154]

Thank You :)

I think it's a very good idea to have a community for custom made mood themes.

Going to check out that link for the moodthemes.