Creating Site Design

In Site Builder , you can build the graphic design of your site by combining the provided presets with your custom design elements which you can upload to Site builder. Site Builder offers design presets of several types, including: design frameworks, color schemes, page banners and site menu styles. You can personalize your design by uploading a custom page banner and logo. Besides uploading your own banner and logo, you can specify the title, subtitle and footer message for your site. In this chapter you will find a step-by-step instruction on creating your site design in Site Builder .
 

The Site Builder  Design step screen looks as follows.
 

The work area of the screen contains the following elements:

1. Design frame selection area, which provides the functions facilitating the choice of a site design.  This choice is the website framework you approved during the design process. 

2. Design frame preview window displaying the currently selected framework. Click this window for full-size preview of the framework. The chosen design framework, color scheme and menu style are shown in red frames in the corresponding areas of the screen.

3. Color schemes area, where you can choose the colors for your site.

4. Banners area enabling you to select or upload a banner for your site.

5. Menu styles area, where you can choose the appearance of the site menu.

6. Logo area enabling you to upload your custom logo.

7. Site info area where you can provide the information to be displayed in the header and footer of your site pages.

8. The design framework list navigation area.

Read this chapter to learn how to use these options to create your site design.

Selecting Color Scheme

For each design framework, three color schemes are available. No custom color schemes can be uploaded to Site Builder.
 

To select color scheme for your site, on the Design step, click the thumbnail image you like in the Color schemes section.
 

The chosen color scheme is applied to the design framework, and the results are displayed on the design framework preview.  

Selecting Banner

In Site Builder, a banner is a large image of rectangular shape which serves as a central element of the page layout. Each design framework offers a choice of available banners.

To select one of available banners:

1. On the Design step, in the Banners area, click the downward arrow to expand the list of available banners.

2. Select the banner you like.

The chosen banner is displayed it in the main design preview window.

For most design frameworks, you can also upload your own banner to provide your site with individual look-and-feel. The supported file formats are *.jpg, *.bmp, *.gif, *.png.

To upload a new banner:

1. On the Design step, click Browse in the Banners area.

2. In the Browse window, navigate to the image file you want to upload.

3. Click Open in the Browse window.

4. Click Upload in the Banners area.

Some design frameworks apply certain restrictions to custom banners, so if you see an error message after the banner upload, read it carefully and adjust the banner image accordingly.
 

Note: Some frameworks do not support custom banner upload. For these frameworks, the Browse and Upload buttons in the Banners area is disabled.

Selecting Menu Style

Menu style defines the visual appearance of the menu items on your site.

To select the menu style, on the Design step, choose the preferable style in the Menu styles area.

For each design framework, there are a number of menu styles to choose from.

Uploading Logo

In Site Builder, a logo is a small image displayed at the top of each page, within the page banner. The maximum size of logo image is 320x320 px; the supported file formats are *.bmp, *.gif, *.jpg, *.png.

To upload a custom logo:

1. On the Design step, click Browse in the Logo area.

2. In the Browse window, navigate to the image file you want to upload.

3. Click Open in the Browse window.

4. Click Upload in the Logo area.

For each framework, Site Builder provides its own default logo image. To restore this logo, click Restore Default.  To remove logo from your site design, click Clear.

Specifying Site Title, Subtitle, and Footer Message

Site title, subtitle, and footer message are text elements appeared at the background of your site: site title and subtitle are displayed within the site banner, and footer message is put at the bottom of every page of your site.

To specify your site title, subtitle phrase and footer message, on the Design step, fill in the fields in the Site info section:

• In the Site title field, provide your site name (maximum 255 characters). On business sites, this is usually a company name.

• In the Subtitle field, provide any phrase which reflects the concept and objectives of the site. This phrase will be displayed below the site title in smaller font. On business sites, this is usually a corporate slogan.

• In the Footer message field, provide the copyright notice or any other information of similar kind - disclaimers, contact information, etc., which you would like to place in the page footer.  Please note:  Because HBJamaica.com designed your site, it is required to always leave that information in the footer.

For each text element, it is possible to break the text into multiple lines. To do so, insert the <br> tag where you want the line break to be. For example: first line<br>second line<br>third line...
 

If you leave these fields blank, the site will contain default text messages instead of this information.