As mentioned, for the third edition of this title, we're going to stick with the magazine site. The difference is, it's been almost four years since the original design was created (eons in internet years) and it's time for an update that reflects today's newest web standards, design aesthetics, and practices.
But the design of the magazine needs a "post 2010" update. This time around, we need something a little less "Martha Stewart" and a little more "Wired".
For those of you who haven't seen the previous version, here's a look at what the previous edition's design looked like:
And here's what our final, responsive HTML5- and CSS3-based design will look like:
The first step is to plan our design and layout.
Before doing this, you'll need to think about the requirements of the site and of your client, if you have one. If you're designing a theme for release to other users, consider how they're likely to use it.
Imagine you are someone who has come to the site for the information it contains. What do you think the user will actually do? What kind of goals might they have for coming to your site? How hard or easy will it be for them to attain those goals? How hard or easy do you want it to be for them to attain those goals?
Are you adhering to standard usability conventions? Web standards and conventions are more than what's laid out in a lengthy W3C document. A lot of them are just adhering to what we, as web users, expect. For example, if text has underlines in it and/or is a different color, we expect that text to be a link. If something looks like a button, we expect clicking on it to do something, like process the comment form we just filled out or add an item to our cart.
It's perfectly fine to get creative and break away from the norm and not use all the web conventions. But be sure to let your viewers know up front what to expect, especially as most of us are simply expecting a web page to act like a web page.