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RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Dustin — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:19:51 GMT

Thanks for your input Ben. I think the series I'm doing will be up your alley. Thanks for your support.

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Ben Hayat — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:06:12 GMT

Hi Dustin;

It's great to see you an open minded and listener. I did enjoy your videos very much.

You asked what we would like to see, and I share my personal thoughts with you as a "Developer".
Almost the majority of the interfaces that we, as developers are accustom to, are WinForms, which has a different nature when being interacted with. The Web world has grown so much (in power of application delivery), that many developers want to use the Web as their media to deliver their application.
However, when someone is surfing the web, they are expecting to view the page as "Web Page" style and not as a "Windows" form. So, my request is to show developers, what things we need to be aware of when we are switching from a "Windows" mentality to "Web" mentality, while designing Web application.

I think there are many people who don't even know what they don't know, when approaching web development. I think you can be a good guide to shed light and convert many developers to think this way.

That's what I think... I'm still going watch your videos, no matter what you put out. :)

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Dustin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:04:33 GMT

I don't think you have to worry about my tone changing to much. I really try to be myself on the videos and I agree, I've watched plenty of videos where the style of the narration made the tutorial unbearable in my opinion. I have no doubt some people will still find my style to be like that as well, but hopefully that stays a minority.

I would be curious to know what topics you (and anyone else) would be interested in seeing covered in the design series. I already have started working on it, on what I think is important to share, so I can't say if I'll be able to get anything else in there, but I may be overlooking something the audience would feel is important. So feel free to share any details you would like.

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Ben Hayat — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:34:17 GMT

[quote][b]Dustin (4/13/2007)[/b][hr]Hi Ben and thank you for your post. I'm glad to know you'd be interested in a series like this, and I'd advise you to give a look to the site around May 1st. ;)[/quote]

Hi Dustin;

Thanks for prompt response, even though you're on vacation. Somehow, your way of explaining things seems to sink in right, maybe it's because you're doing it from passion rather than under time pressure and a gun over your head. :D

I think this is an important point to consider for this type of videos. That people should "Enjoy" the journey of the video series rather trying to get to the end. So hopefully all the new ones are done with the same relax mood, rather than rushed.

I had recently watched a video that the trainer was so stressed out, by the way he was breathing and talking fast and jumping all over the place, that I had no desire to finish it. Just a point to consider.

Again, since you're a designer, and now with the new advent of WPF, which brings designers and programmers closer together, I think your adventure of teaching programmers how to design, will have a continual direction. So, we're looking forward to the next series.

If you need to discuss this in detail, you can always PM me.

Thanks again for the response!

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Dustin — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:54:53 GMT

Hi Ben and thank you for your post. I'm glad to know you'd be interested in a series like this, and I'd advise you to give a look to the site around May 1st. ;)

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Ben Hayat — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:37:18 GMT

Hi Dustin;

I found your site via MS Expression Web site. Unlike some of the other sites that give you a few videos as teaser and then you need to subscribe, I was surprised to see how informative and communicative your videos were.

I guess you've read all the comments about how good the videos are. I agree with all and save the time to get to some other suggestions that you may consider.

I read somewhere that you are a web designer on MAC and now using EW. It's nice to see you bring your experience to Windows world. EW has a unique position now. Not only it's MS premier web design tool, but also, the core of the engine will be in next VS. Which means whoever learns EW, already knows the web part of VS.

Now, who is using VS? Mostly programmers who have much time spent designing Windows Forms and less Web Forms. The approach and thinking is a lot different. I tried jumping into ASP.Net after years of being App developer and it was not a pleasant experience with VS2005 and it's designer, and I kind of gave up. Now I see EW that is what I've been looking for as my design tool and being part of next VS, I'm thinking of going back and give ASP.Net a chance a gain.

Now why am I telling you this? Well, here is where you come into the picture for people like me (lots of them) who are programmers and need to learn web design. Note: I'm not saying to teach them how to write C# code for ASP.Net. Not even data bound controls.

My suggestion is, why don't you take this opportunity and teach programmers how to create the layout/design/look of web driven application, then we work out where and how to fill in the data. I think if you create a series of videos that we can pay for and use, your time and energy is well spent and people are willing to pay for it.

You can have a series of free short videos as "How to's", but full courses should be paid for. That is my suggestions and I hope others will add in their comments.

Thank you and hope to see more of you!

RE: Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

Dustin — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:04:05 GMT

I will be supporting Expression Design on the site as well, and hopefully I'll have some videos for it in the next couple of weeks. My hesitation with ED, is that the program has been undergoing such drastic changes with nearly every release lately, so I've been cautious about making videos that my completely change very soon.

Also, I have something in the works on a bit larger scale about design, and specifically the LVS design. Stay tuned.

Expression Graphic Designer: Teach us graphic design

gecogexx — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 01:59:04 GMT

I'm most interested in learning to make good looking graphics to make my websites look professional. Learn visual studio.net looks appealing and professional because of its graphics and I would like to learn graphic design. I know my way around photoshop, but there aren't enough good tutorials on how to make nice graphics (i didn't get much out of Photoshop type effects by roger pring, other websites on the internet have better tutorials, but they are not enough for me). Once I learn to make nice graphics through step by step tutorials I'll be able to make my own unique variations. I won't be interested in flash until I'm profecient in graphic design. I'm already profecient with xhtml editors and xhtml. I'm not as profecient with css, but I understand css because I learned css back in the days of html 4.1 I want to learn graphic design in either photoshop or graphic designer (its less expensive and if it works I'll use it.)