website in illustrator?
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- mydo
Hi, I've got to design a 200 page website in illustrator with another designer. In your experience what the best way to do this?
is there any clever work flow stuff i can set up?I don't really want to have 200 files that i have to open up every time i need to make the logo bigger, or export as jpg. but then 1 20GB file isn't good either... thoughts?
- iamjustoneman0
your going wrong somewhere along the line if your designing 200 pages, design a handful of pages to reflect the different page types, i.e. homepage, contact page, internal page etc.
Why would you design 200 pages? Madness.
- client requestmydo
- client request? crazy. they're pretending to be important. 200 designed pages = expensive you know.stewart
- fuck the client - educate them ffs!Mojo
- I just finished a project like this. Insane, but they just wouldn't accept anything but a separate psd for every single page (140+ I think). Meh. Secured a paycheck for awhile...Bargels
- dijitaq0
yup, just design the templates for the pages. figure out which page will use the same layout.
unless, you're going for 200 unique pages...
- lambsy0
if you're doing it in illustrator (which sounds completely baffling to me) you might as well do it in InDesign and at least have multipage capabilities.
that way you can break the site sections into a few separate files and rely on the master pages to change the global elements as needed.
- Point50
this does sound like madness! seriously, figure out how many templates you need and use php to easily maintain global consistency across the board for shit like headers, footers, etc. unless every page is going to be totally different; and if that's the case, I hope you're getting paid real nice. and why in illustrator?
- jamble0
Please don't use illustrator, it's just nowhere near the right tool for the job.
- mydo0
@ all. tanks.
we're designing for a client that is anal. and a development team that can't think. so sadly every detail needs to be designed and signed off.using illustrator because if we use photoshop, when it comes to make it in flash they'll have to rebuild/draw everything. = trouble. and presume you can't use indesign to design websites? can you?
i could design in flash, but the other designer would struggle i think.
maybe flash is the tool?and it's a project bigger than this one...... http://www.swfc-shanghai.com/
- if you're prototyping / sitemaping / designing then don't use flash. photoshop or illust or fireworksairey
- i assume b/c they want them to be vector in flash... they do know that if the curves get too complex, it's going to look like ass anyway, right?showpony
- look like what? dammit I want to know!Ravdyk
- is swfc-ahanghai.com your work?mynameisdave
- nah, that's by 777 interactive. but that's what we're aiming for.mydo
- shitehawke0
200 pages of a design is completely ridiculous. And getting them from illy into whatever you're building it in (HTML/CSS or flash) is going to be a complete pain in the bell-end.
Can you try to convince them to just accept a few template pages (like even 20 or so) to give them a good feeling for the site? If not just kick em in the groin and tell em this is sparta.
- neverblink0
If you're gonna do this in Illustrator, I would reccomend the multiple document approach with a shared library of symbols for repeating elements.
- mydo0
^ 1 for each page?
and if so, what the best way to export all?- In CS2 at least theres no option of exporting layers as seperate pages. Its a pain in the scrote.shitehawke
- thatboyneave0
Depending on what you want to do visually you can probably use InDesign — see what formats you can export.
The big benefit if you are really going to mock up 200 pages by hand would be master pages and paragraph styles. Easier to make logo bigger, change fonts and spacing across the whole document.
Personally I’d try and avoid it altogether but you must have a good reason for doing it like this as you have said.
- indesign have pixel view like illustrator?mydo
- Maybe not... you would have to be fussy about the dimensions of things so they don’t look blurry I guessthatboyneave
- neverblink0
Depending on how many different design you have, you could choose to have one document per lay-out (say there are 20 layouts and 5 pages per layout = 20 documents).
You can set up the files basic structure with a recorded action - putting repeating elements in it's place.
- mydo0
will photoshop batch export a folder of AI's to jpg without complaining and asking questions all the way through?
- If you have CS4 you can save for web straight out of Illythatboyneave
- you can save for web in CS2 and 3baseline_shift
- SlashPeckham0
OmniGraffle to wireframe ( http://www.imgspark.com is free )
if you like using vector graphics while designing why don't you use fireworks?... also seems you need to develop a rapport with the developers, why dont you ask them how they like like creative assets delivered and start a genuine discussion... they are the other half of the production team and deserve the heads up on this...- this makes way too much sense for this place buddy.airey
- oops - sorry about that :)SlashPeckham
- scania0
you can export to Flash from CS4 InDesign.
- jimzyk0
just use word
- Projectile0
slight thread highjack here.. but I designed a site in illustrator recently (mainly because client wanted thousands of different options all the time, so I needed Illy's speedy designing capabilities)
I had it all one a one-pixel grid and snapped to it, but when I exported to PSD, everything had anti alias, so I had to do a helluva lot of tweaking. Is there a better process for desgning for pixels in Illy?
- I've seen this for edges of solid color blocks next to gradients... argh, I always tweek in PS!vaxorcist
- ximeraLabs0
Sadly, I have to agree with Mydo that there are indeed clients who want/need to see every single permutation of a site before they sign off on a build. I hope you find some way of streamlining the process man.