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There are definitely some things a webdesigner can’t be without. I, personally always feels a strong need for four things and on occasions when things go wrong, I use a secret ingredient. As you might have noticed in the title, they all have short’s containing C:s and S:s.

CS - Conceptual Sketch

Do you have access to a sketchbook or notebook? Do you use it often when you think of new designs for websites? I do, all the time and I must advice you to do so too. It’s a great way of discovering which layouts work and which ones that are completely crap. The best is that it’s fast and you can have a sketchbook with you everywhere.

Without changing lots of your coding you can rearrange the different elements on your page. Cut out pieces of paper and move around to see what works. It’s also the best way to decide what colors to use. Come on, you got to admit this is a great tool even though it’s analog. Digital things does have a certain level of coolness but get real and use some good old fashioned pens to express yourself.

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets

You must have heard of this one. Believe it or not, but it’s been around since 1997 and still some webdesigners haven’t realized that it is something great and has almost endless possibilities. With CSS comes a few problems though. Browsers render it differently and countless hours is spent debugging, but you can’t get everything.

Explaining what CSS does. If you’re a webdesigner and don’t know, I advice you to read about it at W3Schools homepage.

CS - Color Scheme (generator)

This the most important aspect when it  comes to designing. It doesn’t matter what, could be a website, logo or painting, a good color scheme will do at least a third of the work. Off course, there is different views on what qualifies as a good choice of color. Take my friend’s website for example. It definitely has a “different” style, mostly because of the colors. Before you even think of anything else you should decide if you want a website with strong colors like my friend’s or a solution more friendly to the eye like AlistApart or JasonSantaMaria.com.

When you have decided, head over to a color scheme generator. There are free ones which you can find easily by searching Google.

When implementing your new color scheme there is a bunch of things you can change the color on. Most people set the same link color for the entire page but experiment with a few more. That could spice things up a bit.

CS - Photoshop CS

What would life be without Photoshop? Nothing but endless hours spent in Gimp and that wouldn’t be very exciting. The things you can do with Photoshop has no end. The thing is to learn how to handle all the functions and tools.

Anyway, I know it’s expensive but the CS 3 version is just amazing.

Cs - Caesium, when everything goes wrong

So, when I have spent hours trying to construct and design a beautiful page something terrible happen.  Everything needs to be done again. Why? I don’t know… the point is that you’ll need something to take out your fury on. This is what this last part of the article is about.

My tip is not to throw the computer out the window while listening to the sound of a harddrive being demolished. It’s CAESIUM. What? Yea, Cs, short for Caesium. Cesium is a alkali metal in the periodic table andinfact one of the most highly reactive elements that exist. When it is put in water a high explosive reaction will take place. Isn’t that a great way of gettig rid of your anger.

Unfortunately, Caesium is so dangerous it’s hard to find, you won’t find it at local pharmacy,(I advice you not to try to get it) but there exist some videos of it on the net. Try some below and enjoy.

• Alkali Metals - Braniac version 
• Alkali Metals

Wasn’t that great or is this just what people reading lots of chemistry at school likes?