ABOUT RF DESIGNS

RF Designs is a company that believes their clients are the most important part of their business. That's why we put the emphasis on service. Founded in 2001, RF Designs incorporates professional, innovative designs with first class customer service. Our perfectionist attitude and drive to provide top quality websites has enabled us to produce what we believe every client wants and should expect. We don't settle for good enough, we demand the best. That's what we expect and that's what you should too.

My Workspace

How do I do it, what software do I use to create my designs and who, not what, is the author?

Ok, so I'm not an author. I do however write html. Stop right there. That makes me an author. We'll take the last one first. The key word is "who" is the author. I am, that's who. I create every piece of every website I design, including the html using Wordpad. There are several (wysiwyg) programs that can do it for me but frankly I want to know and understand what I'm doing. I want total control over my designs. There is no other way to go if that's your goal. Is html easy to learn? No. Is it worth learning? Absolutely. My best advice is to jump feet first into the pool of html. Believe me, you can learn it. If you decide to go the other route there are some good authoring programs out there. There are also some really bad ones. While authoring programs may be the easy way to go it is not the way to learn html because these programs do a lot of the work for you. That's your choice to make, however. You know my preference. That's my two cents on authoring your own websites. You can take it or leave it. You ultimately know what works best for you.

What software do I use? I dabble in several graphic programs. I never limit myself to just one. Some have a steeper learning curve than others and some quite frankly do a better job, depending on what you're trying to achieve. My favorite graphic programs are Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. You'd be amazed at what an inexpensive program like Paint Shop Pro can do and it's more user friendly than Photoshop. But Photoshop has it's own functions that only Photoshop can do. I find myself switching back and forth between these two programs more often than not. Though, I do have Illustrator and Photo Impact among a few other programs. I also have a Wacom Intuos tablet which comes in handy when you want to do freehand designs. Add to these main software programs a handful of smaller programs that create fun and jazzy effects and you have everything you need. You can bet though I'm always on the lookout for anything new.

How do I do it? That's a little trickier to answer. Sometimes I ask myself the same thing. Other times I'm full of ideas. You really can't force a design if you're just not feeling it. It's best to step back and take a break because trust me the results will not be what you like and you'll end up trashing more than saving.

Ideas for my designs come from everywhere. Just about everything you see can give you ideas for a design. It's taking those ideas and piecing them together that makes for a great design. Color is also a key factor. You can have a great design but if you don't pick the right colors it can make your whole design fall flat. Depending on the color, the same design can have a totally different effect. And don't forget the all important font. Yes fonts can also ruin a design. There are thousands of fonts for you to choose from so be selective and choose a font that matches the design. You wouldn't use a fun, comic font on a historical website or vice versa. There is an art to picking fonts.

As a designer there are unlimited resources at your fingertips. Tutorials are an invaluable and excellent learning resource. Surf the web, you'll find tons of tuturials online for just about every graphic program out there. There are also numerous graphic books on the market that are also worth purchasing. Some good, some not so good. Shop around and look closely at the content. Can you understand it or is it presented in a way that makes it hard for you to understand what they're talking about, where only a person who's experienced in graphic design will understand? There are a lot of books like that out there! They're what I call techie books. They are presented in such a technical manner that they're hard to understand and quite frankly boring. Who wants to be bored. If you're just starting out be very selective what books you purchase. Visual book series is very good for beginners. It will teach you the basics and they're very easy to follow. Another great resource for learning html is HTML Goodies. This is a great online site for beginners. Just remember there is so much more beyond what's covered but this is a good site to get you started.

I could go on and on recommending different books and websites on design and html. But I'll let you browse what's out there and decide what's best for you. I used a different approach to learning graphics and html. Html I learned on my own by simply studying html source codes, disecting them, what does this tag and that tag do, and seeing how they worked. Once I had the basics down I was off and running. Learning how to design was a combination of playing around with graphic programs and picking up great tips from wonderful graphic books. Then it just becomes a matter of growing as a designer. The websites I design now are much more advanced than what I did when I first started out. They're more complex and I've grown as a designer. Both are evident. What's the old saying...practice makes perfect.

I'm still a work in progress.

RESOURCES AND FAVORITE LINKS

Amara Software Check them out. Great software!
More to come....