The fall semester is coming to a close and students across America are taking their exams and finishing up projects. This semester I’m taking Basic Web Graphics at NSCC, which is a class on how to use Photoshop. I had a little experience with Photoshop prior to taking this class, but I’ve learned some really cool tricks and have enjoyed the art projects.

My latest and final project for this class is to build a Web site for a “client” called Cup O’ Love, a coffee shop that serves high dollar coffee / tea drinks and desserts. They also do catering, music and poetry nights, there are meeting rooms for private meetings/events and they also have a gift shop.

Anyway, I was torn over the method of laying out the site this time – i.e., should I lay it out in tables, use CSS, etc., but I chose to go with using slices in Photoshop and go for a more graphic-intense site. This is a trend I’ve recently noticed in really nice-looking, not-so-simple sites (not to say it’s a new trend; I’m not what you would call very observant).

Here’s a quick shot of the mock-up for the “look” of the site. The assignment was for me to create the company logo, 4 graphic icons, 5 side bar buttons, manipulate a photo of the cafe, a bottom banner image, and a place for text.

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