Sharepoint (Public facing site) Project Guidance

Question

Hi friends ,
This is my first sharepoint project (SP 2013) for which I have been asked to develop a public facing internet site.
I do have a basic idea about certain concepts of sharepoint but still I'm looking for a guidance to how to go about with the project.
Requirements :
1. There are many modules. And each module has many courses. 
ROLES : Anonymous Users : Read and download
    Content Authors : Add, Edit, Delete content.
    Approvers : Publish content
Need to implement cross-site publishing model (correct me if I'm wrong).
3. In one of the webpages of the website, there will be a table in the layout displayed as below: in which anonymous users can only read and download
documents. The brochure icons should allow to download document when clicked. Only authors have the authority to do any editing of the content as mentioned earlier.
Title                             
Duration                                              
Brochure
--------------------------------------------MODULE 1------------------------------------
Course 1
Course 2
--------------------------------------------MODULE 2------------------------------------
Course 1
--------------------------------------------MODULE 3------------------------------------
Course 1
Course 2
Course 3
4. Authors  should have an interface where they can input the dates for individual courses for the entire year like in a calendar control and
display to anonymous users (only read) a  set of all the courses scheduled like below:
            Jan       Feb     Mar     
Apr      May     June    July     Aug     Sep     Oct       Nov      Dec
            --------------------------------------------MODULE 1------------------------------------
Course1 08-10                         02-04
Course2                       05-09
--------------------------------------------MODULE 2------------------------------------
Course1 08-10                         02-04
Course2                       05-09
QUERIES :
1. Based on my minimal knowledge, I suppose I should use document library for creating courses under specific modules.
But how do I customize the look and feel of the library based on the layout mentioned.
2. How to implement the calendar kind of functionality and how to combine all the scheduled courses together to be displayed in a webpage?
3. should I first design the authoring and publishing sites, then create master pages and then go for creating all list and libraries? What should
be the protocol for the above project?
Guys, its my humble request to please help me out :( :( :(.....Thank you in advance. Sorry for such a long description. Spare me on this. Have a good
day :)

Answer 1

1. Since I want a column called brochure which should be an icon (for each course record) and which will invoke upload/download( for authors) and only download for anonymous users, is there a datatype that is supported  in custom list...because I couldn't
find any. Or do I have to implement a document library app?
Inder: Try Image content type. But on click it will download image and not whole course material. So my suggestion here is to create a calculated column to pull image and link download.
2. I would be very grateful if you could  provide me with some useful links which might have a step by step procedure for implementing site architechture :
a)cross site publishing model
b) how to define the user permissions and content approval workflow for approvers
c) Customizing style of the custom list through sharepoint designer
Correct me if I'm wrong :
The protocol should be :
1. To plan site architechture which involves implementing cross site publishing model     Inder: Yes, if required
2. Defining Lists and libraries ( I hope document library app is not required for the above specs..custom list should be fine) Inder : Yes
3. Customizing the style of custom lists and calendar functionality through sharepoint designer. : Inder: Prefer using CSS and designer.
4. Applying master pages and page layouts. : Inder Perfect. 3-4 can go together
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