bb_wolfe

[SherpaStore]

$500, published Nov08, recommended by Ian Lurie.

Thoughts?

BTW, anyone wanting to fuck around with a really good landing page 'starter' tutorial, look at Black Ink 2's sessions 5,6, and 7. I was a photoshop fag until I found Fireworks. Fireworks is pretty spiffy!

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dschus

No. I wouldn't allow myself to pay $500 for a LP book.

Look at what other successful landing pages are using. Employ the strategies they use.

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ChrisS

So you prefer Fireworks to Photoshop? I hope you're joking.

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Yaxxx

This.

But that book does look pretty good.

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bb_wolfe

No, I'm not. Just keep in mind I'm not a designer either, and I'm shooting for cost efficiency. Photoshop isn't realistic for me to master, fireworks and dreamweaver are! No question your PS LP would pwn the fuck out of my fireworks LP.

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bb_wolfe

Without testing your own LP, how do you really know what LP layouts convert? I've been told since I started in AM that you need to test your own shit, and that's largely what I've done. What do you compare between LPs since you can't see conversion stats?

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omgyams

I prefer Fireworks over Photoshop as well. Not because Fireworks is better, but because it does exactly what I need it to do in quick order.

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Demon

I prefer this thing called 'outsourcing'. Although I have to say it would be useful if I could whip up awesome looking landing pages fast. But $500 for a book on landing pages? Seems way too excessive, I'm suprised people haven't lynched the vendor already for providing the book in eBook format.

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bb_wolfe

That's what I was thinking too, but the detail this thing has seems pretty legit.

I like outsourcing too, but $50/LP for a basic design or $200 for a full site is kind of prohibitive, plus you don't know how many times the dude is gonna resell it or a variant thereof.

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zany zoroaster

Here are some excerpts from the book for anyone who wants to take a look
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tele/LPET.pdf
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/exs/LPHExcerpt_9418.pdf

If you want to get it cheaper, you can search for "how to hold a landing page contest" on Yahoo, and there will be a chached page of a sales offer (w/ an email) from a guy who's selling it for $90.

Lord B

Here you go -- Landing Page Handbook Creative Samples: All creative samples from the landing-page handbook. And if you do end up buying the PDF + Hard-Copy Version then be sure to share it with WF!

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TakinThePlunge

MarketingSherpa embeds the ebooks with your personal info from the purchase, I think. I bought some stuff off there a few years ago. I haven't regretted a single purchase, and the cheapest I bought was about $197. It's not your usual ebook spam trash, Sherpa is legit.

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prince

I think you can get the older version somewhere in this forum...

d03boy

Photoshop is NOT the right editor to be using for creating LPs and things of "logo'ish" nature. Photoshop is used for image editing -- JPEGs primarily. Illustrator and Fireworks both do a good job with the logo'ish styles

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radarig

You should be using Illustrator to design logos, yes, but Fireworks and Illustrator are both deficient to Photoshop for designing web layouts.

This isn't to say that you can't use Fireworks to make a good layout, but you just have more freedom with Photoshop. FW obviously makes it easier to go from design to code, if that's what interests you the most.

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jenzkc

3 things you really need to learn to make good landing pages are photoshop, HTML/CSS(!) and PHP. You really should know SQL/MySQL as well unless you want to run static pages forever.

http://www.w3schools.com/

Wrong (about photoshop). Any ad agency you go to, an art director is going to send the web guys a photoshop file to cut up, not a fireworks or illustrator file. What's even faster than anything for cutting up simple landing pages is to slice up layouts in imageready (create slices form guides) and have it spit out the html/css which is really simple to make final tweaks to. To design a single landing page in photoshop and then export the html from imageready takes me like 1-2 hours.

radarig

Ditto'd. I'd add that it's more beneficial to understand the basics of HTML/CSS layout and type before diving into Photoshop, just so you understand what can and cannot be done when you go to code.

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bobsoap

This is an age-old disagreement between people who are more familiar with Photoshop and those who are more familiar with Illustrator. Usually, it is paired with a certain ignorance on the Photoshop side (due to a lack of better knowledge), whereas the vector people know that these folks simply don't know how to handle Illustrator correctly.

"You have more freedom with Photoshop" is an ignorant statement to make. You're either picking up on cliches or you don't know how to use Illustrator.

Illustrator is quicker and far more flexible for object based designs - which every website is by nature. As is Illustrator.

Fireworks is a combination between the two, but some people are not as familiar with it (yet) since Adobe bought Macromedia not that long ago. Photoshop is a raster graphics manipulation application and doesn't come with the flexibility or functionality of an object oriented program such as Illustrator, because it was never meant to have that purpose.

PS is far more popular though because it is a good all-in-one tool. It has a flatter learning curve than e.g. AI. But it is not the most professional choice by far. Some people even call it the web design tool of wannabes and semi-pros.

It's up to the individual to find out what works best for you anyway. If it is PS, sure - you will find an abundance of web design tutorials for it on the web. You can make a decent looking web design in a raster program. If it's AI or FW, thats fine too, plus you know that you're not alone, since almost every professional and agency I know and have worked with uses these tools. You will find less beginner tutorials on these two though.

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bobsoap

Just read your post. I know it's quite the opposite with me and my peers, so it's not "any ad agency you go to".

Btw, if you're talking about slicing and absolutely need to do it in PS, you can open any AI file in PS; the layers are preserved.

I haven't used ImageReady, how flexible is it? Does it create floats and expandable layouts? Does it hack in IE6/IE7 tweaks? All such editors I have tried (briefly) always create with absolute positioning and are not flexible/expandable at all. I may be mistaken though.

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radarig

Begpardon, but what is the perceived advantage in using vector software to create a layout for a screen-based raster application?

I was comparing Photoshop to Fireworks, not Illustrator.

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jeanpaul1979

About the book, in my opinion investing in education is always good. And considering the fact that ideas that you might get from such a book could make you a lot more money that the cost of the book itself, I think it's worth it. I can't speak about the quality of the book though, I never read it.

About PS / Illustrator, I've used both to an advanced level, and I loved working with Illustrator when I was doing print work. But with web design I like to cut and paste mockups together, and PS is more flexible as a canvas so I prefer it for web design.

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bobsoap

The substantial advantage of using Illustrator in web design is that you are able to handle the objects and elements on the page as such. The workflow is a more natural one. The tools are object oriented and not intended to manipulate pixels.

E.g. if you want a 5px line, you simply draw a line and enter 5px for weight. You don't have to create a mask, take care that it is 5px thick, and use the bucket to fill it with a color. That is too workaroundish, if I may coin a word. It's as if you are coding hacks for IE6

This is my experience, and most people I have talked to about this see it the same way.

Btw - if you are referring to the old misconception that it isn't possible to create sharp pixels in Illustrator, that is really a misconception. You just have to know how.

Following up on your question, the advantage perceived by me is based on my experience with both approaches. I decided for myself which one I prefer after I designed for web in both. That this is pretty much industry standard is another question and shouldn't be of importance really - it is your personal preference which counts.

Have you worked in both so that you have grounds to compare on?

True, and I was referring to your very general exclusion of all other options.

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