Website design

The past few weeks, I've been thinking about our website. I think it's outdated and we could use a whole new design. Also, some content needs to be revised.

The problem is: I'm not that good at design in general. If you're not good at something you can either:

a) Pay someone else to do it
b) Invest time and learn how to do it yourself.

I used to create my own program icons for instance, until I got some sense and purchased an icon set. You just can't spend the time to learn how to create nice looking icons if you can purchase a whole set for a decent price. But what to do with the site? The cheapest site design starts at 1000 €. That's a lot of money for something 'you can do yourself'. And how do I know if the result will be good? I'd probably have to change things in the design myself afterwards.

So I checked what I'd need to create a new design myself and started calculating. I have an editor, and I don't need a new one yet. I need a good program to create nice graphics (can you believe I used MS Paint before?). Figuring I should go for the best, Adobe Photoshop is my first choice. I also want an easy tool to create buttons. I found several tools from other µISV, and selected one. I already purchased an icon set, and I can use it for the website too. This is all I need (I think).

Adobe Photoshop CS2 833,69 €
Button Creator tool 29 €
Total: 862,69 €

Cheaper than paying someone to do it for me. And I have control of everything in the design. Of course, it will take some of my time to create the whole site.

The main template is ready, so now I only have to redo all the pages with the new template. You can see a preview here. Note that the site can still change. I like how the new design looks like. It's certainly an improvement. Let me know if you like / dislike it.

Of course, I still have to release Watchdog - O - Matic 4.0 first, so it will take some time before the new website is ready.