Web Design & Graphic Design 101

[GlamourRouge]

Okay so for those of you that build your own sites (graphics and everything), who didn't go to school for it, where did you start? Any books, sites, or tutorials you can recommend? Which programs you do use?

[kortneykay]

I subscribed to www.lynda.com and signed up for their monthly subscription. ($25-32 a month depending on what you get) you get one week free and it's pretty awesome. There are 22,000+ video tutorials and they break them down so you don't fall asleep or get bored. I have used dreamweaver, photoshop, wordpress, etc and am currently learning about HTML, XTML and CSS so I can do my own work for my sites.

[Super_Girl]

This can be really easy or extremely complicated.

Easy Difficulty
Get a tumblr or blogger account.
Get a domain name.
Point domain name at blogger account.
Now you have a site.


Moderate Difficulty
Get some webhosting
Get a domain name
Install Wordpress
Now you have a site.
(With this option, most of the things you need like Wordpress and a shopping cart are available on the backend or as an add-on)


Hard Difficulty
Get a domain name
Setup a server
Install Apache
Install MySQL
Build it from scratch
Point your domain name to your IP
If you don't have a static IP install dynamic IP updater
Now you have a site

If anyone wants some help just let me know. It can be confusing as hell so I don't mind helping my fellow cammers.
Disclaimer: I got a lot of this from my husband who does this stuff all the time. I just need to get him to get my shit done.

[GlamourRouge]

I'm talking about extremely difficult stuff. Like paysite building and complicated, elaborate graphic design. Everything else seems pretty self-explanatory with tutorials all over Youtube IMO.

[Super_Girl]

The easy and medium options are somewhat self explanatory but not the hard option. That involves configuring a lot of complicated things. I thought when you said web design 101 this would include the more basic concepts. I'm not trying to argue, just trying to explain my line of thinking. Let me get some stuff together and do some research. And of course if anyone needs help let me know and I will do what I can or bug the right people for the answers I need.

[Super_Girl]

Kortney,

That site has an amazing amount of stuff. I used it to learn other non web related things. Highly recommended!

I subscribed to www.lynda.com and signed up for their monthly subscription. ($25-32 a month depending on what you get) you get one week free and it's pretty awesome. There are 22,000+ video tutorials and they break them down so you don't fall asleep or get bored. I have used dreamweaver, photoshop, wordpress, etc and am currently learning about HTML, XTML and CSS so I can do my own work for my sites.

[ThatBitch]

I taught myself HTML eons ago, back when we still used Netscape Navigator (who remembers that?? LOL) by first using Netscape Composer, then FrontPage (I do NOT recommend FP because it makes funky-ass code) and then by going to websites that had features I wanted and viewing the source. I learned to tweak the codes the way I wanted, and finally got to the point I was just writing my own HTML in notepad. I tried Dreamweaver because everyone kept saying it was SOOOO great, but I fucking HATED it and went back to writing my HTML in notepad. Later I started plinking around with PHP and CSS, using SQL Server for databases, etc etc etc. Now I use wordpress for my websites because it's just so much easier to run a site/blog with that using a theme that has the basic features I want and tweaking the PHP/CSS to make it look/act exactly how I want. I can change the entire look of a theme with a little tweaking. I don't want to spend a ton of time working on a website because that isn't what makes me money. I want to spend a LITTLE time customizing a theme and then move on to the marketing, producing content, selling cam/phone time etc.

I would say, if you don't already know how to do it, it's probably much more efficient to pay someone to customize a theme for you. If you can type posts on this forum, you can run your own blog/site using wordpress. You can get a customized theme cheap and then skip to the money-making stuff, rather than spend hours, days, weeks, months figuring out how to do it yourself.

[GlamourRouge]

^^^ I'm less concerned about the cost of it all, and more concerned with the fact that I want it to look like how I picture in my head lol. I'm talking about paysite design, not like a blog/wordpress site :-/. Its mostly heavy graphic design I'm interested in, and mostly because it is a personal interest and a vision I would like to achieve.

[ThatBitch]

Well, if you can describe / draw out how you want it to look, a good designer can build it for you much more efficiently than you can teach yourself to do it. You can also build a paysite with a wordpress site - I did. All you need is the ability to setup HTACCESS on a specific directory from your hosting account admin, and setup a merchant account with a company like Zombaio or CCbill. In fact, I had my old paysite run from a wordpress site and Zombaio setup the payment / login (htaccess) for me. There's really nothing too complicated about it.

[twistedprincess]

With a Content Management System (CMS) such as Drupal, Joomla, or Wordpress you can build just about any site to do just about anything. All those CMSs have add ons and plugins you can get for free (or buy for the ones that do really complicated things) that mesh right in with the CMS. This does include addons that will let you make a member's only section of your site. You will have to build a template yourself or hire a designer to build a template for the site though, as a CMS does run a template.

I use the Adobe programs for most things including web design without a CMS. You can make a mock up of the site you want in a program such as illustrator and a designer will be able to make you a template that will look just like it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Benefits of using a CMS: very little code you have to learn as Addons, plugins, and the CMS itself do all the dirty work, ease of updating the site, GUI for the back end, the CMS itself is free

If you're building and coding it without a CMS, you would likely use php or jquery.

For the graphic design parts, generally I work by myself playing with the adobe suite until I get to a point I can't make it do something I want it to do, and then I google it until I find a tutorial that tells me how to do it.

(You can download a free 30 day trial of any Adobe software, and if you know a teacher or a student they get massive discounts on buying it)

[kittykrane]

I opted for the "easy option" , buying a domain that I wanted to redirect to my Tumblr,
cos I thought that's all I had to do... So after I did that, I was like "where am I supposed to do the redirect thing???" Well apparently I had to have some basic webhosting too, so I signed up for that. Then I had access to redirect. Ok, so how does that work?? And what's up with all this A-record mumbo jumbo and some Tumblr specific IP stuff that you have to enter? I contacted Host Gator's online chat tech and supposedly he claims to have set it up for me. I just have to wait 48 -72 hours to see if it works. For a non-pc nerd like me, it's NOT that easy!!!

[Super_Girl]

Ah you are right it is not all easy and I probably should have put the following disclaimer. DNS can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

OK so an A record is part of DNS. Basically it works like this. Computers talk to each other in binary and IP addresses are exactly that. So computers don't care about our broken mumbo jumbo. They have something better. Mathematics. We onethe other hand need a domain name to remember where to go. So DNS is the system that takes what you type in www.stripperweb.com and translates it into an IP Address and then computers can talk.

You have a file on your webhost called a Zone file. It contains all those translations that need to be made. An A record is the most important. It says that your domain name is actually 4.44.245.6 (example)

Tumblr is sort of a bitch sometimes with the A-Record. They want you to point your domain to them. Sometimes they give you this domains.tumblr.com and other times and IP. Let me know if it doesn't work KittyKrane and I will try to help you get it going.

Once you get past this the Tumblr portion will be a breeze.

[kortneykay]

I plan on buying like, 100+ domains and designing them all myself. I see that I can tweak wordpress and I can host like 15 each on like one hosting account so I'm uber excited!

[Sam38g]

www.adultcentro.com is a site where they have templets & ability to build your own site & vod site. All you need is content & your own billing company.

Many billing companies advertize on www.xbiz.com and www.avn.com

So I don't think you need to do it all from scratch these days.

Smooches,
Sam

[IsobelWren]

I'm another Lynda advocate. That site is fucking amazing!

[Super_Girl]

I plan on buying like, 100+ domains and designing them all myself. I see that I can tweak wordpress and I can host like 15 each on like one hosting account so I'm uber excited!

I had webhosting with hostcolor a long time ago and they didn't care if I made subfolders under my domain and pointed domains to them. So I had a domain example: www.supergirl.com and then I made subfolders under it like www.supergirl.com/bitch and so on. Then I would take a completely different domain name like example. www.superbitch.com and point it to www.supergirl.com/bitch. Now when someone typed www.superbitch.com it went to supergirl.com/bitch. There are settings that never show that it's a subdomain.

Why do this? Well a lot of webhost providers only let you use one domain name for each webhosting account. That is crazy, I just wrote them all and finally hit those guys and they said they didn't care what I did as long as I used my own DNS. I know this sounds confusing as hell. Now I am confusing myself.

Anyways KortneyKay is definitely on the right track. You can get a lot of mileage out of just one webhosting account and wordpress. This is inspiring me to get my site moving. I was out of camming for a while and now I have to start over.

[MissSassyPickles]

With Hostgator they are adult friendly and you can host unlimited domains and unlimited everything for $10/month.

[kortneykay]

I had webhosting with hostcolor a long time ago and they didn't care if I made subfolders under my domain and pointed domains to them. So I had a domain example: www.supergirl.com and then I made subfolders under it like www.supergirl.com/bitch and so on. Then I would take a completely different domain name like example. www.superbitch.com and point it to www.supergirl.com/bitch. Now when someone typed www.superbitch.com it went to supergirl.com/bitch. There are settings that never show that it's a subdomain.

Why do this? Well a lot of webhost providers only let you use one domain name for each webhosting account. That is crazy, I just wrote them all and finally hit those guys and they said they didn't care what I did as long as I used my own DNS. I know this sounds confusing as hell. Now I am confusing myself.

Anyways KortneyKay is definitely on the right track. You can get a lot of mileage out of just one webhosting account and wordpress. This is inspiring me to get my site moving. I was out of camming for a while and now I have to start over.

I know what you mean. I saw some really nice looking wp sites that were designed so well that I didn't even realize they were wp sites until I did the good ole' right-click page source lol. I found their wp theme and I was like YUS! I mean, they even had splash pages, but it's awesome because when you're duplicating sites or adding girls (phone sex) for pages you can easily just copy and duplicate it. I was like wait, fuck doing HTML/CSS on a regular site and doing all of that coding, I'm just going to tweak the crap out of a wp theme and duplicate them. Like my mind was blown at how many sites don't look like wp blogs at all.

[Super_Girl]

I like Wordpress a lot. A huge amount of themes and even free ones are pretty awesome. This site is a great site with really good articles and a lot of free themes. Nice ones.

http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/

[Mistress Anika]

As a professional UI / Web designer I recommend playing to your strengthens. If your tech savvy Lynda, W3Schools, ect are all great tools. But like with any tool you have to 1) know how to use it 2) Know how to search it.

If your not tech savvy, skip the hassle. Pay someone to set up your site, set up your tumblr account, make your watermark or whatever. You'll make more money in the long run.

I'm not saying avoid the problem completely but with the dawn of WordPress and other CMSs, you only need to understand basic word processing skills to update a site.

[Caz]

I agree with Mistress Anika. I'm all for learning how to do things, but as a pro web designer I have to say it's a hassle without basic knowledge of the big picture. Hosting, design, coding, scripts, cms (even wordpress is a cms), plugins and everything else. It can be a little tricky. You can go to digital point forums and find a cheap designer. GO to fiver and get a cheap watermark/logo done. You can even find hosting that lets you use really simple design tools. If you get hosting, make sure you get a cpanel. Just ask around, it looks to me like plenty of us do design. I'm sure you can get it done at a modest price or even work something out.

[GlamourRouge]

What about Adobe Premier Pro & also Photoshop-specific tutorials?

[cyberstripper]

As you have seen above, there are many ways you could go about doing this. Me being the control freak I am have had several offers to do a membership site with a 50-50 split with a webmaster, but I declined most of them. Now that I look back, it is probably a good idea to work with an established webmaster and do a split. There are pros and cons to doing a split rather then doing it all yourself. A pro being if you have a legitimate webmaster, all website updates, content updates, promotions of the site are done by the webmaster. I once upon had a small membership site where my webmaster was also the photographer...this was a win win. I had to schedule shoots, etc and had a nice site with professional pics, never had to update, just had to show up for shoots, and wait for checks. This was years ago and the site does not exist anymore. In your case, I might look into this.

Another thing you can do is simply purchase a membership site from an established designer that includes a cms (content management system) The cms allows you to update the site anytime you want, kind of like uploading pics to facebook. I recommend rtwebdesigns.com The sites are simple, easy to navigate with just enough pics and bling

If you have no webdesign/graphics skills whatsoever, I would not recommend doing this on your own. Building the site alone will have you stressed out, on top of promoting it. I would find a webmaster who will do a fair split with you, or purchase a site made to your specifications that includes a cms. I would make a post on gfy.com...the guys there can be a little bit aggressive with newbies, but if you post some photos (if you are comfortable with this) you will definately get offers. Of course, use your best judgement when discussing your site with others, check references, etc. There are alot of deadbeat webmasters out there who do not do what they claim to do and cannot get the traffic to your site they claim they can.

I am also hoping you have a large stash of content. I would suggest to start up, having enough content saved up to update the site weekly for about 2 years. You can always add content last minute (for holidays, up-to-the-minute candid shots, etc, but 2 years is a nice stash of content to get you off of the ground and not having to shoot every week. I would also suggest you have at the very least 10+ sets of photos (50-100 pics in each set) and 15+ Videos already on the website from the day it opens, so it opens up with alot of content. Nowadays, you can also work with your current camsite and get a plug-in for your members area, doing weekly camshows for your members is a must in this day and age. I know SM gives models a plug-in for members shows.

I am currently working on my own membership site as well...I am keeping it very low key and small scale, so I am taking it all on myself. The site I designed is very simple and my main spheil is AMATEUR CONTENT. My content will all be self and webcam captured content ONLY...no professional pics and no big name here, just the amateur next door with a cam. I am just doing it for an experiment really, to see how much $ it can bring in, of course one day I dream of making 1/2 of my income from offline sales, the rest of my income from online sales (camming) An easy way to gather up a shitton of amateur webcam content is to splitcam, but use it to snap pictures in intervals of 5 seconds, at the same time hooking it up via your video editor. You can capture tons of video footage and pics just doing this throughout your day camming

Hope this helps If you buy a site, make sure you ask for a CMS!!!

[GlamourRouge]

Another thing you can do is simply purchase a membership site from an established designer that includes a cms (content management system) The cms allows you to update the site anytime you want, kind of like uploading pics to facebook. I recommend rtwebdesigns.com The sites are simple, easy to navigate with just enough pics and bling

I am also hoping you have a large stash of content. I would suggest to start up, having enough content saved up to update the site weekly for about 2 years. You can always add content last minute (for holidays, up-to-the-minute candid shots, etc, but 2 years is a nice stash of content to get you off of the ground and not having to shoot every week. I would also suggest you have at the very least 10+ sets of photos (50-100 pics in each set) and 15+ Videos already on the website from the day it opens, so it opens up with alot of content. Nowadays, you can also work with your current camsite and get a plug-in for your members area, doing weekly camshows for your members is a must in this day and age. I know SM gives models a plug-in for members shows.

rtwebdesigns was VERY unprofessional and I refuse to work with them. Plus, their designs are extremely outdated. I have another company I plan to work with. 4x the cost of RT, but 100x the quality. But I just want to be able to edit my splash pages honestly, and customize them to my liking.

I have over 100 videos and stuff. Plan to have much more than that.

[DoodlebugBites]

What about Adobe Premier Pro & also Photoshop-specific tutorials?

Lynda.com is the best site for this as well; that, and the tutorials on Adobe's website (you've checked that out, I assume?).

If anyone is a heavy user of Adobe programs, I recommend the $50/month Creative Cloud plan. You get access to thousands of dollars of software plus other goodies. It will let you host five sites but of course for the adult sites you'll want to export from Muse or Dreamweaver or whatever to an adult-friendly host.