How Did You Learn Web Design?

I agree that w3schools is useful at first

 

html is basic way to learn web design . you can learn from dreamweaver .

 

For me it was a totally different ball game. I was a developer by profession and qualification. Later on what I learnt that user interfaces are the most enjoyable part of any web site or application which user feels. So I continued with designing and development of UI rather than backends. In this case I already had a background of coding. But when I thought of designing I started with photoshop and then I started with simple notepad to write HTML and CSS.
So XHTML, CSS and Photoshop (addon on graphics) are the basics of web designing. But still Photoshop is an addon as you can create versatile websites without much graphics.

 

i think the way learnt web design is using templates and NVU(WYSIWYG HTML EDITOR)and that makes the design process easier for newbies

 

dont use dreamweaver

 

Hey, don't use FrontPage as the previous poster suggested. The last version of FrontPage was from MS Office 2003. The newer version is Expression Web, and they have version 4 out right now. You can also use Adobe Dreamweaver, apparently it's very good but I've never tried it.

I took a look at your website and it's ok, but not very aesthetically pleasing. If you want to make pretty backgrounds, then you will need at least a little bit of skill with graphic design. Consider using Photoshop to edit pictures so that you can effectively use it.

ASP.NET is server side scripting. I wouldn't recommend going into that as it starts to go a little bit into web programming and less into web design. Maybe you can do that part a little bit later, after you've become more proficient with HTML and CSS. Though server side scripting is important for creating dynamic websites.

There are many other things being used in web pages these days including JavaScript (client-side scripting) and Flash. Look into flash of you want to create those neat videos that you see on some web pages. But becoming a good web designer is difficult enough in its own. Start off doing that and consider offering small business to design their web pages for free/nominal fee for practice.

Web Design & Development Company,India

 

I learned HTML first. Then hopped to Visual J++ for some odd reason. Seeing as to how this is a hobby for me, learning full blown Java would have been retarded. So I fell back onto javascript. thats the 1999 version of javascript. browsers were not quite as nice back then with code. this made flash actionscript appeal so i learnt actionscript but the flash was too slow.

eventually i just seriously took out time to learn php/mySQL from every book, video, reference possible for about 2 years. a project that took me six months in the very beginning is now done in about 3 hours. O'Reilly books are awesome. Learnt every single aspect of joomla to end out my php/mySQL studies. I decided those frameworks like drupal, joomla, and wordpress are too big on other people's code for my liking. my code is afraid of other people. So that was an additional 6 months of wasted time, other than learning ALOT of php syntax. Much of it was joomla specific though.

Came from that and pissed off cause adobe changed actionscript. actionscript 3 grumble grumble grumble. i was one of the bitter ones. but worked my way into papervision, flint, and tweener in due time.

returned back to the D.O.M. scripting, I learned that javascript and browser compatibilities had improved majorly over the decade i was doing otherwise.

Hopped into Dojo about 1 year ago. Wow. JS Frameworks are awesome. People try to say flash is going to be replaced. No way. Flash is deeply embeded into the internet now. They are similar but seem to serve different purposes.

So thats my story.

 

you've just got to go for it, try stuff out, try making websites, firstly try copying other styles then expanding them to become your own, try cloning popular websites like amazon, ebay ect.. just do them offline, dont publish them, pretend your redesinging them, what would you add differantly, what unique areas would you add, then keep expanding. you'll do well

 

W3schools all the way. It gives you basic web programming knowledge and it is really useful when designing your site. But if you need more advanced lessons you'd better search the web.

 

Just through experience over the last 5 years. Its fun to look at the first website I built and then to see what kind of incredible sites (IMO) I build.

 

I downloaded several ebooks before. I read, tried the examples, and practice. Practicing more often would probably make you a good web designer

 

The best way to learn web designing is by practicing the skill itself.

 

Join forums of like-minded individuals, ask help, make mistakes, and pay it forward. That's been a big help to me over the years.

 

I'm self taught but I did find using Wordpress very useful. it let me get behind PHP and learn about connecting to mysql.

 

I started tinkering with web design way back when FronPage was about the only thing out there for editing software. Then went off in another direction, Windows Server and network administration. During the intervening years I still occasionally tinkered with web design. Just recently started working heavily with web design again. Things had come a long ways since I last worked with it.

I got a copy of Visual Studio. The company bought it. I started working with it and found it to be fantastic for web authoring. I then later found that you can get VS for free (the express edition) from Microsoft's website. The free edition does everything the paid version does except support for team environments. I don't need support for team environment so the free version is identical to the paid version for me. BTW don't spend a bunch of money on Dreamweaver. It's a second rate editor and the best editor is completely free. Microsoft Visual Studio Express edition.

I also found that there are hundreds of hours of video tutorials at asp.net all for free. You can learn everything you could ever want to know about asp.net and C# and VB.net on their web site. This includes database backend and everything else for dynamic web applications. And it's all free.

Oh, and it also does just straight html.

 

I taught myself.

I started with WYSIWYG type editors. I would put the website together and then switch over to the HTML view and see how everything worked. I messed around with that for years (and still am). LOL. But, I think the best way to learn is trial by fire.

 

These days I'm running my own web server. It's sitting here beside me, My machine also has two monitors so I can work on a website (live) and with the site open in a browser on one monitor just hit the refresh as I make changes to the site in Visual Studio on the other monitor.

I see people talking about FTPing to their server and I realize how spoiled I am.

 

Start programming BBS's back in the late 80's early 90's - took off from there.

 

I learned mostly by finding something I liked on the web and viewing the source. There are also snippets and tutorials all over the web. Definitely make use of the w3c web site, after all, they set the standard. Make sure you are learning and using CSS for styling. All of the HTML tags and attributes that change the style in some way have been deprecated.
I recommend learning at least the basics before trying to use Dreamweaver. I love the newer versions of Dreamweaver, but I don't use the WYSIWYG part of it. I still type all of my code and just use the other part to preview.
Overall, just play around until you get stuff to work. Or you could always take a class.

 

I learned mostly from w3schools.com and from reading books, dowloading websites and seeing how they worked.