Hello, I really want to become a professional web and graphic designer, but I have no idea how to get into it. I have bought 10 sitepoint books on various languages, but I haven't got round to reading them. I have no one else I know that I can discuss this with so I thought I would ask here in hope of maybe another professional helping me out. TIA
For the website building side: Start with learning (X)HTML and CSS. These are the basis of what all web pages are run on. Later you can learn your chosen programming skill (which will use (X)HTML and CSS). For the graphics side: Any one can learn to use a graphics program but the skill is to take your artistic ability and implement it using a computer program. This part can take some time if you already have the artistic talent. Web Style Guide would be a good site to read through to get a general overview of building sites (no graphics skills but how to use them). Seeing you purchase acutal books, perhaps this is one you should add to your library as you will be referencing it often as you start out and later on as a refresher.
The best is to start with HTML/CSS at w3schools.com Learn the basics first, then improve. It will take some time to understand CSS, the box model, floating, but at the end you will make it. When you understand the box model, CSS is no problem at all. Tables are for tabular data, not for website's layout. CSS is for styling Check out http://csszengarden.com to get a feeling of what I am talking about. Visit other forums about (X)HTML (oops, I run a forum about XHTML valid websites). Get a feeling for "the float"... when you got that correctly... go on with graphics