Designing and creating a website
4. Designing a template - graphic identity

Your template should now have the structure and layout that includes the most essential parts of any web page. To give this layout an identity you will add colour and images. When users use your website they will know that they are browsing (or surfing) your website as they click from page to page. They will know this because each page will have the same graphic identity.

Look at this page as an example of a page template. It is similar to the other pages in the training section on websites. Each page has a logo in the top left-hand corner. Each page has the same colour and size font for the page, menu and content heading. This is minimal graphic identity, but sufficient for this purpose. When designing a website you would decide on this design and set up one page (a template) that you would reuse over and over to create the various content pages - you just save it under a different file name each time you create a new content page. In this way you would not need to insert graphics and set up the page style every time you create a new page.

Follow these steps to complete these activities. Look for contexts that are meaningful to you in your classroom.

Work in pairs (30 minutes)

• Look at the websites Africa: The cradle of civilization website and the Deadly viruses site and answer the following questions. Make rough notes as you answer the questions.
  
  
  • What gives the pages a sense of identity?
    
    
  • How is the text broken up so that it does not cover the whole page?
    
    
  • Would you say that there is a good balance between text and graphics?

• The websites we would like you to look at are:
  
  • Look at the Chernobyl website in order to answer this question: What provides the sense of identity as you navigate through the pages?
    
    
  • Look at the Chess for kids site and the Dolphins site in order to answer this question: What makes the graphic design for these two sites good and appropriate?
    
    
  • What new things have you learnt about the graphic design and identity of a website?
    
    
  • Open the file called Do's and Don'ts that you created in Activity 1. Compare that list with what you now understand about graphic design.

Read about graphic identity

Read about graphic layout

Websites:

• Africa: The cradle of civilization
• Deadly viruses site

Websites:

• Chernobyl
• Chess for kids
• Dolphins

Work on your own (90 minutes).

• Open your saved template file.
• Choose a colour scheme for your page background and text colour.
• Decide on a logo or graphic that will give your pages a consistent identity.

The graphical elements of a website.

How to insert an image.

How to change text colour.

How to change the background.

How to add a background picture.

Save your template page regularly. Name the file template.htm.