Mistakes You Mustn’t Make as a Web Developer
Posted by BaileyD | Posted in Web Design | Posted on 06-08-2010 | 1
A web developer’s job is often confused with that of a web designer’s; while both pertain to the creation of a website, the former deal with aspects that lie under the hood while the latter is more about the visual department and the way the website looks. You could say that development is the nuts of bolts of a website while design is its beautified exterior that serves as the user interface. In fact, most people don’t understand that web design starts with web development and that the two aspects are inter-related. If you’re an aspiring web developer, here are a few mistakes that you must be careful not to make over the course of your career:
- Trying to do it all: While web developers may double as web designers at times, it’s best to focus only on one part of the creation aspect. Focus on improving your skills as a developer rather than trying to master all creation skills at once. If you’re a freelance developer who is hired by clients for the whole package, hire the services of a designer who you can work with. This way, you can concentrate on your responsibility and the designers on theirs. Besides, you stand to gain when they send you the development work for sites they’ve been asked to design, so it works out to both your advantage.
- Not understanding what the client needs: Misunderstandings tend to happen when developers don’t understand what the client needs for their website. While they may have an idea of the design they want, most clients are not familiar with their web development needs. It’s up to the developer to find out the purpose of the site and liaise with an employee who understands technology. Also, if a middle-man is involved (some people outsource their web design and development services to outside agencies), it’s the developer’s job to ensure that the client’s instructions are not lost in translation. When you go ahead without understanding what your client wants, it involves a lot of wasted time and effort.
- Ignoring the power of cooperation and teamwork: There are various aspects to a complete and comprehensive web design, and unless all these aspects integrate in the right amount and at the right time, the design is not satisfactory. There are some things that must be done before others and others that can be done in parallel. The team working on the design is responsible for planning the various stages of the design and then executing the plan in the least time possible and with the least effort. When web developers don’t cooperate with the rest of the team, they compromise the entire project. Teamwork is essential, and web designers and developers need to be team players to come up with an exceptional design.

I am Nile Flores, a sassy web designer and developer - a webmistress. I live in Centralia, Illinois, which is about an hour from St. Louis. Blondish.net is where I can freely share my love of all things involving web design, graphic design, web developing, and even my experience as a blogger. Join me on my journey. I hope I do not disappoint.





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pen tool and with your first color, outline the flower. Using 1.0 width. You do not want it to be a wide line.
8. Save in raw form so you can make later alterations if needed. To save for use, merge only the layers visible. Do not merge all or you will have a white background.









For a decent size, we will go with the 21 (wide) x 17(tall) pixel smilies that I use as a base for the creative cute smilies I have like the alien, bunny, panda, and bear sets. So, first, we work with a blank template of 21 x 17 that has a background color of #FFC0FF.
Make the shape as smooth as possible. It may be hard to tell when you have the image zoomed in, so you can play around and zoom out to work with your image.
Make sure your background is the same as the template background of #FFC0FF. Copy the smile and paste as a transparent layer onto the main emoticon template that you just completed.
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. You may us any color you wish for your guitar. For this tutorial I am using a blue color, but as you can see in the current layout for Blondish.net, I have a pink one.
2. We want to give our guitar a little depth so we will give it some shading and highlighting. Use the pen tool and make sure to create a new layer for each. The image to the side is an example of individual layers that make up the vector. Right click to open in a new window – [











