What does the job of a webmaster boil down to? Is it internet marketing? Is it content writing? Is it just a good helping of entrepreneurial spirit? Actually it’s all those things – and more – and if you want your website to truly thrive then you need to be able to take care of every aspect of its well-being. Here we will look at a few ways that you can get more from your website’s appearance by investing in gadgets and gizmos that will aid in your graphic design, so that as well as filling your site with great information and media, you can also make sure it looks the part as well. Here are some of the best gadgets, software and tools to get you into graphic design and make sure your site looks as slick as possible.
Graphics Tablet: A graphics tablet is basically a pad that you can draw onto in order to input into the computer. This allows you to draw in Pain or in PhotoShop in a much more intuitive and natural way – just as you would on a computer. And it’s not just for drawing original cartoons and logo designs (something you will only do so often…) – it’s also highly useful for drawing around the outline of any element in a picture so that you can change the background or apply other effects. This is something highly useful that every webmaster should own.
Galaxy Note: The Galaxy Note is perhaps best known for being a huge phone and many people struggle to see past this. However what it is also, is a phone with a stylus that allows you to use the Note much like a graphics tablet. It’s not as accurate of course, and actually the stylus on the Note 1 is a little… ‘off’. However as a portable way to start drawing up images it’s highly useful and that extra screen real-estate actually comes in handy.
High Definition Camera: You won’t tend to draw so much for your web design, and will be much more likely to use actual photographs which look more professional and are better suited to a range of purposes. To do this though you will need a high definition camera so that you can get images with a high enough resolution to look professional and to manipulate in a range of ways.
Photo Studio: Unless you have an office you probably won’t have the facilities you need to set up your own photo studio. However, just taking a corner of your room and a table and providing it with a good spotlight, and a good white background, can be highly useful for taking pictures, for demoing products and generally for making videos.
Adobe Photoshop: This is the piece of photo editing software and highly powerful for touching up your pictures or adding special effects. This is something every webmaster should have on their PC – or at least one of the free alternatives like GiMP.
3D Modelling Software: Likewise, 3D modelling software is also highly useful for creating 3D images that you can then incorporate into logos and other pictures. Rhinoceros is one of the most powerful and simple to use, but Blender is the best option you’ll be able to download completely for free.
Dreamweaver: Dreamweaver is very useful for beginners who don’t know CSS and HTML but want to make basic websites that look attractive and professional. This also has a range of other useful tools such as a ‘search and replace’ function that can search entire folders to change instances of words or even make site-wide changes to your color schemes where you haven’t used include files or style sheets.