The overall look and feel of the web site must be established before any coding can take place. This involves the combination of a colour scheme, graphic design and typography. These choices are often influenced by designs in other media. A music group, for instance, could have a web site which reflects the look and feel of the band's album covers and posters. This preserves continuity, and enables the association of a certain image with a specific product or service.

In other situations, the web site design must be created from scratch. In this case, a background in art and design is invaluable. Having studied at the Crawford College of Art and Design, I have not only the necessary design skills, but also the experience in turning designs into reality.

The HTML which forms the bulk of the web site is written by hand in a straightforward text editor. This enables complete control over the code. Web sites written in visual HTML editors often have unnecessarily bloated code and are difficult to edit.

At the same time as the HTML is written, the site's graphics are created. The client must provide the initial images, usually in the form of photographs and drawings. These are then scanned, adjusted to fit the design of the site and converted into a format suitable for the web (.gif or .jpeg). Other images, such as navigational icons, can be created from scratch.

In this way, the web site comes to life.

• Making changes to the web site
• Consultation with the client