I’ll admit it, I’ve always thought that most of what graphic designers do, anyone could do. After all, Photoshop isn’t that hard to figure out, and most of the secret to good web design seems to be choosing colors that don’t clash. In my earlier post, I mentioned running into an IE bug displaying PNG…

I’ll admit it, I’ve always thought that most of what graphic designers do, anyone could do. After all, Photoshop isn’t that hard to figure out, and most of the secret to good web design seems to be choosing colors that don’t clash.

In my earlier post, I mentioned running into an IE bug displaying PNG files. I was trying to create some rounded corners for our site. I eventually got my new corners created…and they didn’t look rounded at all, more like clipped corners.
I spent the next two hours trying to get a 10×10 pixel image to look like a curve. Seriously, look at that thing — how to you imply a graceful arc when you’ve only got 100 pixels to work with?

In any case, the site looks much better. We replaced the old, very dark blue background with a much lighter shade. Looking at the site doesn’t make you want to kill yourself immediately.
Incidentally, we stole the color from Metafilter. VP had been having us change it various colors around the office: That shirt! Those shoes! That folder! All of the colors looked garishly bright. I pulled up Metafilter and suggested their color. At least I know it’s a shade of blue I can stare at for hours without wanting to gouge out my own eyes.