Introduction
WHEN WE FIRST MET STEVE CROZIER, president of Populi, we liked what he had to say.
He said, “I want to buy you lunch.”
When he told us his company’s vision, we liked that even more.
It was a simple solution to a complex problem. On one side, thousands of designers and art directors are eager to take their talents to the Web but aren’t sure how. On the other, web agencies could not find enough good web designers to get their work done.
The Populi program was designed to close the web talent gap by training traditional designers in the ways of the Web. Until ithe Populi program comes to your town, this little book can teach you what you need to know.
This is not one of your “Learn HTML in 24 Hours” books, nor is it one of the many introductory books on web graphics. It won’t teach you how to imitate the stylistic tricks of famous web designers, turn ugly typography into ugly 3-D typography, or build online shopping carts by bouncing databases from one cryptic programming environment to another. This is a book for working designers who seek to understand the Web as a medium and learn how they can move to a career in web design. It’s also suited to designers who wish to add web design to their repertoire of client services.
2 Introduction
Populi (www.populi.com), the Web Talent Incubator, turns traditional designers and programmers into web builders.
Why did we base this book on the Populi curriculum? For one thing, it’s one of the only programs we know that actually works. For another, we wrote the curriculum. (To be honest, we wrote the curriculum in cooperation with courseware developer Margaret Alston, and designer-instructor Cheryl Stockton, of the Pratt Institute. The cranky opinions are ours; the thoroughness and good sense—theirs.)
The concepts contained in the Populi curriculum and this book have been field-tested on working designers. They’ve been reviewed by web agency consultants and Pratt faculty members, spoken aloud to tens of thousands of web conference attendees, rolled in flour, and slow-baked at 450 degrees.
This book will teach you how web design compares to and differs from the job you know and love. It will explain the medium’s challenges, such as bandwidth, navigation, and browser compatibility. And it will teach you enough of the technical details to work with your peers on the production end and to pinch-hit as needed.
The Populi Curriculum in Web Communication Design, created in cooperation with Pratt Institute, was launched in Dallas in 2000 and will eventually come to your town.
On the other hand, the book you are holding is available now, at a modest price.
You know what to do.
Part I
WHY: Understanding the Web
1 |
Splash Screen |
5 |
2 |
Designing for the Medium |
13 |
3 |
Where Am I? Navigation & Interface |
69 |
