Moving from Print to Web

Hi All,

Over the last 6 months (on & off) I have been researching front end code and read some pretty useful books on web design best practices.

I'm curious to see if anyone else has recently made the jump from print to web design and if so, what advice you can give?

For me the hardest part is getting the time to learn and also finding the right resources. I have found code academy to be quite useful but are there any others out there that are better?

Cheers
 
Hiya,

I have. I have tinkered with websites in the past but always gave up. I am trying to create a website at the moment. The advice here has been great. How far have you gotten with it?
 
Hiya,

I have. I have tinkered with websites in the past but always gave up. I am trying to create a website at the moment. The advice here has been great. How far have you gotten with it?

I started working on Code Academy a while back and was making some good progress. The problem is that I haven't worked on it for a while and feel like i've moved a few steps backwards, which is frustrating. The key is consistency, well it certainly is for me.
 
It sounds like what you're trying to learn is web development rather than web design. The two are different, though knowing about each is useful. I assume you are looking to build sites as well as design them? It might be a better option to find a developer you can work with and just focus on the design side.Web development is a full-time job, and trying to get the hang of both sides of the coin means twice as much work.

Building sites using HTML and CSS is easy enough to learn once you get your head around it, the challenge comes from knowing how to do it correctly, for example semantically marking-up pages, loading resources in such a way that you don't slow down the loading of pages, using something like Less or Sass to create CSS that is cleaner, and thus more maintainable. Things get even more complicated when you start working with data and dynamic sites and need to interact with a database, as not many people want a standard static HTML+CSS site anymore.

This is where a language like PHP comes in handy, but this opens up new hurdles. There's a CMS I use for most of my sites called Perch that requires minimum PHP knowledge thanks to the way it's built and the support of the staff and community. You still need to ensure you're writing code or configuring the server to prevent security vulnerabilities, such as script injections or man-in-the-middle attacks. Most security issues can be handled with an SSL to secure data sent in forms and strong passwords but it's another thing to worry about.

I'm not trying to but you off learning by any means, but my personal experience has taught me it's best to find someone who knows how to turn your designs into sites correctly. It's less stressful. Learning web design nowadays is a confusing and daunting experience thanks in part to the abundance of Javascript tools and frameworks that everyone seems to rely on, that in-turn require you to understand UNIX commands just to install these tools and get them working. I'm trying to work on something at the moment that requires the use of a framework that requires an endless list of other frameworks and dependencies just to export a file in a particular format!

I'd recommend you get experienced with HTML and CSS since these are core, then start looking at how you use PHP since most major content management systems are built on this language. I'd highly recommend Perch as it puts the focus on the HTML+CSS side of things. Basically it gives you complete control over how the site looks and works, you only make editable what you need to be editable. That should set you up with enough tools on your tool box to build some simple sites that can be edited. For large projects definitely look at making friends with a few developers.
 
It sounds like what you're trying to learn is web development rather than web design. The two are different, though knowing about each is useful. I assume you are looking to build sites as well as design them? It might be a better option to find a developer you can work with and just focus on the design side.Web development is a full-time job, and trying to get the hang of both sides of the coin means twice as much work.

Building sites using HTML and CSS is easy enough to learn once you get your head around it, the challenge comes from knowing how to do it correctly, for example semantically marking-up pages, loading resources in such a way that you don't slow down the loading of pages, using something like Less or Sass to create CSS that is cleaner, and thus more maintainable. Things get even more complicated when you start working with data and dynamic sites and need to interact with a database, as not many people want a standard static HTML+CSS site anymore.

This is where a language like PHP comes in handy, but this opens up new hurdles. There's a CMS I use for most of my sites called Perch that requires minimum PHP knowledge thanks to the way it's built and the support of the staff and community. You still need to ensure you're writing code or configuring the server to prevent security vulnerabilities, such as script injections or man-in-the-middle attacks. Most security issues can be handled with an SSL to secure data sent in forms and strong passwords but it's another thing to worry about.

I'm not trying to but you off learning by any means, but my personal experience has taught me it's best to find someone who knows how to turn your designs into sites correctly. It's less stressful. Learning web design nowadays is a confusing and daunting experience thanks in part to the abundance of Javascript tools and frameworks that everyone seems to rely on, that in-turn require you to understand UNIX commands just to install these tools and get them working. I'm trying to work on something at the moment that requires the use of a framework that requires an endless list of other frameworks and dependencies just to export a file in a particular format!

I'd recommend you get experienced with HTML and CSS since these are core, then start looking at how you use PHP since most major content management systems are built on this language. I'd highly recommend Perch as it puts the focus on the HTML+CSS side of things. Basically it gives you complete control over how the site looks and works, you only make editable what you need to be editable. That should set you up with enough tools on your tool box to build some simple sites that can be edited. For large projects definitely look at making friends with a few developers.

Thanks for your feedback Paul.

You are correct in thinking I'm looking to learn web development. Most (if not all) web designer jobs these days require the knowledge of front-end code and I have been showing an interest in moving across to digital design for a while now.

I know a lot of folk believe that the building of websites should be left to the developers but this does not mean that the design and build cannot be done well. There are several web designers in my team who design really nice websites and build them to a pretty high standard too. I have been given the opportunity to make the switch across to digital and really just was interested to see if anyone else is in a similar position and can offer any tips.

I guess I'm just looking to learn HTML & CSS before moving onto javascript & JQuery etc.
 
I know a lot of folk believe that the building of websites should be left to the developers but this does not mean that the design and build cannot be done well. There are several web designers in my team who design really nice websites and build them to a pretty high standard too.
I build a lot of sites myself, despite not being a developer. Google is your friend. It's more when you get into "web apps" and full stack development that a real knowledge off multiple languages is needed. It's easy to bite off more than you can chew, especially since nowadays most developers are moving over to frameworks like Node and React that basically turn a website into an app. These frameworks are great for building and maintaining large scale sites, but overly complicated for smaller sites. I have a single-page e-commerce site I manage for a client that's ridiculously over-complicated for what it is.

I guess I'm just looking to learn HTML & CSS before moving onto javascript & JQuery etc.
Get a solid understanding in HTML and CSS since they're the two languages you'll definitely need to learn to build sites. Even PHP sites output to HTML since that's the form browsers read to display the content. Once you're comfortable with those, I'd look at learning SASS or Less. These are basically an extension of standard CSS that allows you to use variables and functions to save you time writing the code by hand. It's tricky to get your head around at first, but puts you in a good place, especially since most developers nowadays will use one of the two. There's a Code Academy course for SASS if I recall.

After that it's hard to say. Knowing or at least being familiar with a server-side language such as PHP is worthwhile. This will allow you to work with CMSs such as Wordpress which a lot of studios like.

Javascript is useful, though technically not 100% required to build simple sites. It's definitely worth getting a feel for it at least, but if you want to transition 100% to development then JS will probably be your language of choice for the foreseeable future thanks to the Node craze that's swept the development field.

Best way to learn is to just design a site and build it. Google when you get stuck, and if you find yourself repeating a lot of code or doing something that seems long-winded there's probably a better way to do it. Sites like CSS Tricks have some good tutorials and articles on all matter of subjects. There's not really a truly correct way to build sites though, everyone has an opinion on the 'best' way to do it.
 
I build a lot of sites myself, despite not being a developer. Google is your friend. It's more when you get into "web apps" and full stack development that a real knowledge off multiple languages is needed. It's easy to bite off more than you can chew, especially since nowadays most developers are moving over to frameworks like Node and React that basically turn a website into an app. These frameworks are great for building and maintaining large scale sites, but overly complicated for smaller sites. I have a single-page e-commerce site I manage for a client that's ridiculously over-complicated for what it is.


Get a solid understanding in HTML and CSS since they're the two languages you'll definitely need to learn to build sites. Even PHP sites output to HTML since that's the form browsers read to display the content. Once you're comfortable with those, I'd look at learning SASS or Less. These are basically an extension of standard CSS that allows you to use variables and functions to save you time writing the code by hand. It's tricky to get your head around at first, but puts you in a good place, especially since most developers nowadays will use one of the two. There's a Code Academy course for SASS if I recall.

After that it's hard to say. Knowing or at least being familiar with a server-side language such as PHP is worthwhile. This will allow you to work with CMSs such as Wordpress which a lot of studios like.

Javascript is useful, though technically not 100% required to build simple sites. It's definitely worth getting a feel for it at least, but if you want to transition 100% to development then JS will probably be your language of choice for the foreseeable future thanks to the Node craze that's swept the development field.

Best way to learn is to just design a site and build it. Google when you get stuck, and if you find yourself repeating a lot of code or doing something that seems long-winded there's probably a better way to do it. Sites like CSS Tricks have some good tutorials and articles on all matter of subjects. There's not really a truly correct way to build sites though, everyone has an opinion on the 'best' way to do it.

Cheers, I have been planning on redesigning my own website and think this would be the best way to learn as I seem to be able to retain info better that way rather than reading books on code etc.

I feel I have enough knowledge of the best practices of the design side as I've picked up quite a lot from working with other designers and researching trends.

Hopefully I can start to make some progress this year.
 
I added web development to my skill set around 10 years ago, it was extremely frustrating at first and I still don't see myself as a pure coder, but I know enough about it to make fully responsive brochure websites

java/php etc - forget it, it bores me to tears!
 
Well we are doing all type of work like printing and web design. All things are good, but it is really good if we doing only work which is in we master. I want to give you one piece of advice is do as more as practice for perfect grip.
 
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