No Experience, should I learn to design myself?

Hi everyone, 1st post (so glad I found these forums, look amazing!)

I have no experience at all in writing html or designing websites.

I want to end up with a professional looking website.

My question is, do you think I should invest the time and effort to learn how to design a website well, or should I just fork out and hire someone to do it for me?

I don't like the look of a lot of templates that I've seen so don't want to use them.

I can see the advantages of both sides (from my noob perspective),

Designing myself
- Learn a new skill
- don't have to rely on paying someone else to make new designs
- creative control

Hiring a designer
- Quick
- They do it for a job = better then I am
- Would take a lot of effort to get to a good level (???)


Any feedback is MUCH appreciated,

Thank you!

 

I'd say.. invest sometime and learn atleast XHTML/CSS, they are pretty easy and are worth the time invested. If you want a professional output its gonna take sometime doing it yourself
Even if you hired someone to do it for you, knowing whats going on can immensely help. esp when you want to tweak stuff around...

 

spend some time learning HTML / XHTML / CSS this will give you a good idea, books are best for learning these, (also they act as ref. points). Don't expect to learn the language and be able to build a professional website right off. Its not as easy to do as they might seem to look.

Java might be also a good language to also know at least the basics of.

 

Thanks guys,

I think I will start with a template, learn some html and then edit it.

 

For design, you need to learn photoshop, you should have that creative... thing

For development learn HTML, CSS, PHP OR ASP.NET AND SQL

 

Yeah HTML is the easiest to learn and it really isn't that hard to master. You can get your own site running rather easily.

 

I would say if you plan on doing a bunch of designing then learn how to do it yourself, otherwise if it's only for 1 or 2 projects just hire someone or find a decent template.

 

Thanks again for the replies everyone!

I know someone who is amazing in photoshop (degree in graphic design), and they said they could do things for free for me

I think I'll start out by trying to learn some HTML and CSS, and use this to edit a template.

Is word press a good place to start from?

 

Yep, it is. You can easily use Wordpress as a CMS or anything else for that matter. The possibilities are endless.

 

Wordpress might be a little to steep a learning curve without any prior knowledge of html and css....I would suggest learning the basics then moving up.

 

Can you suggest anything with a more gentle learning curve?

 

Also, is hostgator an ok choice to host with if using wordpress?

 

If you know nothing about construction, masonry, electric, plumbing, carpentry, and architecture would you design and build a house then move your family into it? Probably not.

Your website is not much different if it is important to you.

Learn from those you hire, but hire professionals to do the work.

 

Bottom Line: You need to have a little knowledge of HTML/CSS at least so you can understand and change things on your site without having to consult a professional for simple tasks. I recommend using w3schools.com for a good foundation for HTML/CSS and also a good reference to look back on. Then hit up youtube and do a search for an HTML series, look for one that starts literally with nothing, and moves on to building from the html tags while explaining what they are doing. Also make sure the video is decent quality (you can at least understand and read what is on the screen in full screen mode). Then practice practice practice. Follow along with all of the videos as you go. You will probably get through complete tutorial series in about 1-2 hours of video in roughly 3-10 minute videos. If you have any questions go ahead and pm me

 

For software there are programs like: Web Studio 5, WebPlus X2. I myself have never used them because I learned how to code HTML by hand by going through the source code of other sites when I first started. This was before the W3C had a school, oh yeah there was webmoney.com that was around that also helped me out. My suggestion is to get an understanding of how to actually hand code first then move up to a program like Dreamweaver or if you find that you like to do it by hand then a program like Notepad++. You can learn the basics here: www.w3schools.com

 

It helps to know a little bit of what you're getting into but ultimately, it depends on what's important to you. You may not spend money for a hiring a professional and just do it by yourself but you're trading time for it. On the other hand if you hire someone, it could save you time but you're trading money for it.

Just choose what you prefer to spend as a resource: money or time?

 

Is it possible to easily edit word press templates?

 

I would advice you to learn HTMl, CSS and Photoshop, it will take soem time, but it will be helpful in the future

 

Thanks. Any suggestions on how to go about learning? I have access to a lot of text book, might go check some out

 

Text books are the snows of yester-year, there are tons of useful manuals on the web. Starting with w3schools - http://www.w3schools.com/