Hi, I'm looking to find out about web design and getting myself a website, I have used a PC for so long, but never had any real ideal how it all works I would love to become a web designer and host my owns sites and maybe make some money too! i'm a total noob however, and this post is my first step into web design.

 

I'm looking for help and advise on courses and general tips for novice like myself.

 

Well, I';; be browsing this nice forum and hope to hear from you all soon.

 

Wish me luck!

 

Cheers

Hello, nice to see you're interested in learning how to design websites. First of all, you're going to need some lessons in XHTML/CSS, because they're the two codes, that when combined build up the structure and style of the websites. If you want to build graphical websites, you'll also need Adobe Photoshop to draw and then slice up your images, to place in your design.

 

Something I always say to new designers, is don't get dragged in by any WYSIWYG software, it's a waste of time as it makes the designer lazy, and produces invalid code. To truly learn the roots of design, then you'll want to code everything by hand, something that may take a while and be difficult at first, but will benefit you greatly in the long run, because you'll have the ability to look at a site, read the code, and know what's wrong straight away.

 

If you're unsure about what you need to design a website, then go to my blog: Designers Blog, I've written an article about what you need to design websites in the software side of things, although it does say G.I.M.P, I really would recommend a trial of Adobe Photoshop for 30 days, followed by purchasing the software, as you'll really benefit, particularly if you intend to make money from this business.

 

Learning how to code the website is the hard part to be honest, once you've got past the barriers you'll hit of coming up with designs etc. However, there are some very informative tutorials around the internet for absolutely everything that you'll need to design websites, the most recognised of all, is W3Schools, who produce excellent articles. It's also recommended that you buy a couple of books to get you into it, it'll probably help you more than W3 Schools too, because I've noticed that W3 Schools is very uniform, and rather than having a modular tutorial system, everything is all blocked into the same section, for example you learn about tables all in the same area, then margins, then padding, when in reality, you need a combination of all the different codes for each selector, rather than all of the same ones (sub-selectors). This is where books come in handy, because they're written by designers and developers who know creating websites like the back of their hands, so they know where to start and where to finish, and are therefore nice and concise, just the way I like it. If you need a few recommendations of books you might want to get, then just give me a shout, either email me or send me a private message and I'll be willing to offer some advice on what books to get you started on.

 

Don't try and take everything in all at once, that's my advice, otherwise it's a very intimidating and overwhelming task, and rather than becoming something that you enjoy, it'll be something you despise and wish you never did, in this aspect of things, I always made sure that I was designing websites for a purpose, otherwise it's fruitless and in the end it'll just annoy you that you have a website that you've just made to "test out" (always have a goal ).

 

Most of the people here will tell you that website design is something that drags you in, as long as you delve yourself into the depths of everything, you'll start producing beautiful designs that you can be really proud of, and it's a great feeling when something like this happens, a thrill that you'll always want to chase . So good luck in your little adventure to start designing websites!!! I hope all of the above helps, if it doesn't... Then that was a waste of 10 minutes heh

Welcome and good luck!

 

Really nicely put, Traxor...couldn't have said it better myself

 

Just to add...HTML Dog is also great for html and css.

 

Hope to see you around and ask away

Thank-you very much for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it and will take your advise. I'll check out your blog too.

 

Can anyone recommend the type of courses i can do from home to study? I hear people like computeach are not great, i guess i'm looking for a good way into web design to gsin a qualification.

 

Thanks again

If the way you think you'll learn is by paying for a course then go with someone like CompuTeach definitely, however that may set you back quite a bit, when all the resources you really need are available either for free or at a relatively low price online and in various retailers on the high street.

 

Personally, I'd go with teaching yourself, I learn much better by figuring stuff out for myself, and with all of the information in the above post that I've given you, you should be fine. One piece of advice, rather than going with "learn web design" books, go for specific books, so find books that do the following:

 

1. Designing websites in Photoshop
   
2. Designing in XHTML
   
3. Designing in CSS
   
4. Web Standards
   

 

There's an XHTML/CSS top 101 questions book that's available, I can't remember what it's called but it's available from Waterstones for £23.99 and looks really good. I'm reading CSS Master: Advanced Web Standards Solutions at the moment, it's a really nice book for beginners and for people who already use CSS and just want to expand their knowledge even further.

Hi there jmcw, welcome to WDF

Hi there I was in the same position as you a couple of months back and I have become alot better in webdesign

 

Best of luck