iWeb, to use or not to use?

[JnthnMtthws]

Howdy,
I've been asked by a friend of mine to 'brand' a small restaurant/cafe he's opening. He wants the Logo, menu, name typeface, color scheme, posters, etc, then the thing I'm really not experienced in: website. I'm doing graphic design at college and were not at webdesign yet, but my tutor recommended iWeb (program on Apple Mac's that should come free as standard) she said it was easy and user friendly, but is it capable of doing a job worth paying for, she's only used it for personal use.

My question after me rambling... Is iWeb any good for doing work for 'clients'?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Hoogle]

never used it there are plenty of capable free software out there or you can get something as advanced as dreamweaver the question really is it capable of xxxxxx the question is and I dont mean this disrespectfully to you in any way but more are you capable of using a program to its ability.

you may be able to push a program to its limits in features and produce a good looking site or you can buy dreamweaver and have absolutely no clue how to use it and produce a poor site due to lack of knowledge on the program.

Not going to lie most website is done using templates these days so look into the format you want, what you want to achieve with the design etc and then look into what software you want.

If it is just a restaurant then maybe mainly text and images with a copy of the menu etc so yes I would say it was good enough if you want all scripts flash and css style coding you may want to look into something more capable.

Sitegrinder (plugin for photoshop)for example is designed for people with little web design knowledge but are good at photoshop and with a few online tutorials you can turn your psd into a website with a lot of functions. Or with little knowledge gained fromonline tutorials you could create the site in Photoshop slice it up import into dreamweaver and have it up and running within a couple of hours work.

Of course the more complex the site the more you have to learn about more complex programs etc.

 

[iDad]

yes it is a very good program

 

[sprucemagoo1]

I would strongly recommend looking into jquery instead of flash if you are thinking of having any animation on the site, as flash is not compatible on most apple devices.

 

[stekle]

In my opinion it's pretty good

 

[Gingah]

Avoid any and all programs that does not inherently improve your workflow when it comes to webdesign. Speaking out of experience, any WYSIWYG-software (What You See Is What You Get) will severely limit both your understanding of any underlying causes of error on the website, as well as limit the sites functionality in relation to modern web standards.

By your description the site would basically just require text and images, and probably occasional updates to both. Get your design together, turn it into basic HTML/CSS document(s) and upload it to an adequate webserver; it shouldn't be much work creating it, nor maintaining it.