Good afternoon all.

 

As you have probably gathered by now my name is Matt. I live near Birmingham in the UK and I hope to become a talented web designer. Unfortunately I am new to all this so my knowledge at the moment is almost non existent. This is something that I hope (with your help!) will change over the next few weeks and months.

 

Now naturally I have a few questions:

 

What advice would you seasoned pro's give to a young budding web designer?

 

Anything I should be concentrating on in particular?

 

Any resources that you would recommend?

 

Currently I have been reading up on and trying to learn standards compliant XHTML & CSS. Is this a good place to start?

 

Thank you all in advance for your time. I am looking forward to meeting you all.

 

Matt

Welcome to the forums.

Hi Matt. Welcome to WDF!

 

I don't think I'm a "seasoned designer" just yet so I shall defer your questions to The Four Bens and Co. (everybody here is called Ben )

Thanks for the warm welcome!

 

I assume your name is Ben also?

My names not Ben but I will welcome you to the forum anyway even though I just joined yesterday. As for your questions I will just say one thing, you have started on a good foot by joining a forum, getting support from fellow developers and designers is always a good way to begin, as passing on knowledge and advise is key...I look forward to seeing your work as you progress in your development

I will be changing my username to Exben629 shortly.

My name is richard.. but i have a couple of friends & aquantances called ben if it helps...

 

XHTML + CSS are the best places to start, and if you build in standards compliancy from the start, it will really help any painful transformations along the way -think of it as skipping the whole "Christopher Eccleston" stage of Doctor Who and going right from David Tennant...

 

Also, don't be tempted by dreamweaver at first - learn how to design properly, with a text editor, then once you can do it blindfolded is when you can move onto dreamweaver.

 

Think of it like learning to use an axe before using a chainsaw. It will help you when your chainsaw runs out of petrol.

My names Ben! One of many on the forum!

 

It's nice to have you with us Matt, we are all here to help you when you have any questions.

 

I would say learning compliant CSS and XHTML is a great way to start if you start off learning things the right way you can't go wrong. It may also help to dabble in a scripting language such as PHP as you may want to customise scripts etc in the future.

 

Penguin is a bit of a PHP pro so he's sure to know the answers.

 

Looking forward to reading your stuff. Welcome Aboard.

 

Och you barely know me ben! Maybe i'm just a fraudster... not sure what the point would be but yeah.

Finally, a Ben. Someone who must know what he is talking about

 

Thanks again fellas for the warm welcome. Really appreciate it. Makes things much more enjoyable.

 

I've just created a shortcut to Notepad on my desktop, so thank you Richard for the solid advice.

Welcome to the forums! I'm new here too

Thank god! I thought you where called Ben for a minute! Not another one I thought!

 

Welcome to the Forums Matt

I'm also called Ben .

 

Concentrate on using a graphics editing program (Photoshop, GIMP (free) Fireworks (Ben (as in the 'boss') uses fireworks I think))

 

I use photoshop, its simply the best. I found it then so easy to bengin making some mental designs, with only a bit of CSS and XHTML knowledge.

 

Out of the 3 I'd learn photoshop first.

welcome to the forum. I presume that you will be surely be helped from this forum.

 

More over take part in discussion.

 

Thanks

Welcome to WDF! Hope you enjoy your stay!