A friend of mine wants to learn graphics design particular in designing websites

 

I have tried to explain Wireframes, Grid systems, Typography to him,

 

I think it would be a lot easier if He could use a site like w3schools but purely for graphic designers designing websites.

 

Does anyone know of a site like this?

 

Obviously we have searched google, We did look at you tube videos but majority of them go off that you already know how to design.

 

Is there a site out there that has it all step by step - explaining what a grid is and why we need it etc. Explaining good and bad typography, Header, body, Footer,.. Something that breaks all elements down step by step

 

Thanks.

What you have suggested to him is not graphic design, those are simply the practices we use in order to carry out graphic design, graphic design is the theories and principles, in order to learn graphic design you need to understand what graphic design is, the AIGA have a good description here http://www.aiga.org/guide-whatisgraphicdesign/

 

further from that you need to know how to contextualise images by deconstruction and reconstruction for example and other such skills, another would be the understanding of how people use or view things, meanings behind colours for example, the real skill comes in the form of the message you communicate, as in order for it to be graphic design, or any sort of design for that matter, it has to communicate a message to the audience otherwise it's art at best and junk at worse.

 

Of course what you have said matters but those are simply 'rules' to adhere to in order to create a pleasing image, a different part of the theory, an important part but not what graphic design is. Here is another set of principles to look into along the same lines you have already shown him http://www.j6design.com.au/ClientArea/6fundamentalprincipleofdesign

Not gonna help your friend, but I thought I'd point out, W3 Schools is a terrible resource to learn web development from, so you would most certainly not want to send him to a reciprocal for design related learning. But I am sure there's good resources out there. TreeHouse for example covers a lot of design theory.

Edited February 18, 201511 yr by rbrtsmith

Hi Chantelle_ico,

Below is what I did, there's a book recommendation and a few links that might help your friend along the way hopefully he can take something away from my wall-o-text.

I got interested in design when I realised I was useless and knew absolutely nothing about it or what looked nice. Here's is a look at my skills before I started learning (http://i.imgur.com/IbAs3YW.jpg), I thought that looked pretty sweet at the time and was quite proud of myself lol. I've got a Dribbble account now where my latest stuff is and I'm at around the 7 month mark of learning.

https://dribbble.com/mshanda

Firstly I recommend a book the called "The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams (not the actor), it teaches you about CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity) which is a brilliant starting point to grow from. It started me along to path to where I am at the moment. I believe if he wants to get good at this he'll need to have an active interest in it and immerse himself into learning about design.

I also read the articles and discussions at the place below daily :-

https://usepanda.com/app/#/ (the designer news section)

He can also learn the fundamentals of graphic design (the stuff in your post) at places like Lynda.com and Tutsplus as well as countless books that are too numerous to list.

Once he has learnt some of the basics he should practice his skills regularly by creating fake website designs, I use Sketch but he can also use Fireworks, Illustrator or Photoshop (I recommend Sketch because of ease of use). A good way for him to practice is to find a design that he likes and try to recreate it in the program of his choice. If he does this enough he will probably learn skills along the way and start implementing them into his own designs without even realising it.

Lastly he should visit places like Dribbble and Behance everyday (the usepanda website shows new designs everyday from both places) and download the pictures of the designs he like's and try to understand why they look good. Once he's trained his eye he'll look at design more critically and be able to notice little things that might irk him such as bad alignment etc. He should also learn about UX, I'm currently reading "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug and it's brilliant. It's a book I've seen recommend by so many whenever somebody asks about UX.

Below is a few other great resources I've found along the way :-

https://hackdesign.org/

https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-1-559d4e805cda

https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-2-430de537ba96

https://designschool.canva.com/blog/

http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/series/design-school-for-developers--webdesign-13793

I'm far from professional and still have a lot to still learn but I hope some of the stuff I've written above will be helpful to him. I believe anybody can improve loads if you put the time into learning and practising. I've come from being completely useless and now I'm actually getting some paid UI design work here and there.

Regards,

Marcus