Ben Owen

I lost my job as a site engineer in November and here we are nearly in February and still no job. I messed around a little with web design while i was working i would say im still a beginner. I really want to try and make a go of web design, working for myself. Seeing as im "on the dole" i have plenty of time to waste building web sites. Can a beginner make any money working for himself? If not should i try getting on some courses which i could get a grant for?

Thanks for the help. Seeing as im unemployed ive got the time to really get into learning PS and CSS. As for Joomla i have looked on the site and I know that CMS are the way to go. Im sure ill be back on the forums nagging all the CMS gurus in the near future! lol

I have been a site engineer for a large construction company for the past 6 years but the company went under and I am now unemployed. Obviously because of the current climate, I have as much chance of getting a job doing this as lightening striking twice. So I have decided to persue a career in web design/coding. I have been doing it on and off for a while now whilst at work but I am definately no pro at either design or coding. What i seem to like doing is taking PS layouts and coding them using CSS. My problem is that i cant really find alot of material to practice on and I dont want to take any jobs on for real yet for the fear of making huge errors. Is there anywhwere with free PS layouts that i can slice and code myself. I would make my own layouts but i want to try and work with realistic scenarios, not my crappy efforts that i can prduce. Any help would be great.

Ok thanks for the help. I got a quiet day at work so i think ill be messing with notepad all day then! lol

Last but not least. Ill admit i have been naughty and used a "borrowed" copy of dreamweaver but i have since deleted it from my system to try and start using kompozer. From what i can gather most people just use notepad or notepad ++ or some other derivative of it. Is this true?

Thanks for the replies. Im mainly trying to get my head around css at the minute. I see many people use photoshop to design their sites. But i hear many stories saying its not a good idea unless you know how to code it up properly afterwards. My main strength is photoshop if im being honest and if i can get my head around coding i think ill be getting somewhere. Is there any good css books you could recommend?

Ive been making the odd webpage (not very pretty ones) for a while now and I seem to have managed to get my head around photoshop to make some nice images/logos etc. But i feel im not good enough to start producing proper websites for clients. I really would love get into web design but i can not take up a trainee post as i cant afford the paycut. Is there any way i can train myself at home without shelling out any cash? (Due to lack of it!). Also Without wadding through all the random tutorials on the net. Is there a proper course that can take me through the various areas of web design instead of having just random lessons? As i start to confuse myself!

Thanks for the info. Just need to find some projects to get my teeth into now. Better go hunting

Basically in a nutshell ive had it with my day job and i want to follow a career in web design. I know a bit of photoshop and html but i wouldnt say im anywhere near a pro. What is the best path to take? Should i take the plunge and a pay cut and find a job as a trainee somewhere or is there a better way of achieving the job role i really want? Is there an industry standard qualification that i could do while working in my current job? Any help would be great, so i can think about setting the wheels in motion.

Cheers for the input on my layout ill have a look and see if i can make it a little more interesting. Ive been doing simple. HTML/CSS pages for around 12 months now just for local youth centres and so on. Nothing special. As for photoshop, ive used it on and off over the last 6 months to edit photos and skinning personalised car liveries for a game called GTR2. Im quite familiar with how to use it now. I only really found out about using photoshop for creating web page layouts not long back on this forum, so now i can put a bit of flair into my sites. My main problem is knowing what looks really good. I look at some of the guys work on here and wonder how they think it up! I only really do web design as a bit of a hobby but just recently ive decided to try and learn enough to get some decent work out of it and eventually even quit my other job and do it full time. But only time will tell

Its for practice if anything im quite new to web design and im just experimenting a little bit really with different effects you can get with photoshop. Ive managed to learn HTML and CSS to a reasonable standard and now im venturing into producing layouts in PS. I suppose you could say its based towards a web developers/graphic designers site. I thought people would say it was a bit bland. But as i learn some more cool tricks ill spruce it up and change it around a bit.

My second attempt at a web site. Still in photoshop. I used a template as inspiration but the site layout i built from scratch. Its not quite finished im hopefully going to put an flash gallery at the bottom. Next stop is the CSS wireframe. The proper way of course. Thanks SkyteMedia for the tips much appreciated Anyway tell me what you think. Cheers

Who uses a tablet in order to mock up their designs in photoshop/fireworks? If so whats he best one to get for someone on a budget?

Thanks for the comments. The "blood" is now gone. I think im going to put some of my other work on the right hand side and tweak the other bits. Ill post it again when ive finished for another grilling!

Thanks for the advice. I agree with blood looking at it again now. What should i put on that right hand side? It needs something.