| Well one important thing I would have to say is to first pick a style! It's easier to mature and gauge your progress when you choose a style and then mature it progressively. The through constant practice and maturation, you willl become better at the process. Both a drawing with great detail and one with lack of therefore can be drawn by the same "talented" artist. I'd say the three basic places to start are typography, proper padding, and style (which can be use of borders, rounded corners, sharp edges, or minimalistic as long as it's consistent). There defiantly is always a style that can be identified with each artist's work. And even with someone with the greatest portfolio you can usually identify elements that reveal the artist art work. So what you will have to do is iterate and experiment with the above until you develop. 1. A style to commercial (or your) liking. 2. Basic sensibility when it comes to web design or your relevant project space.. the sensibility changes with the medium at least to a small degree (design common sense). Just like you use your judgement to decide to at least a small degree who's advice is worth listening to in this post, you need to build that same common sense up for design. I suggest doing mini front page fake products up to build up your skills. When you get better at that (you should notice significant improvement after 6-10 projects) try to go a little further and create an FAQ or about page for that product with that style it will become alot easier since you've already gave "definitions" to how some elements should work and the overall spirit of the project. (One thing to note is it helps to have at least SOME Photoshop and Illustrator skills, at the very least you might want to add some texture to your products and custom gradients. IMHO it's alot easier to get great work out when you can over kill the project. Just barley getting through it with hard "Crusty the clown" colors will bleed your project. This is coming from someone who taught himself good web design) I'd be glad to show you my latest projects for you to judge for yourself. Hope this helps. |