dan87676 said:
Hello there,
My name is Dan I'm 27 years old from north-east England. I'm new to the forums, have been reading the last week and seems like a very helpful supportive community so I thought I'd register and post up a question.
What does it take to get into web design? can it be pretty much self taught and what is the best way of going about it? I know basic html and css but thats about it at the moment.
Cheers
Dan
All you need is TIME....
Learning web design like learning any design discipline - it's not difficult but you have to put the hours in. If you're not going to take a course then start with the basic principle of "if you want to learn about farming go to live on a farm". So if you want to learn about web design start living on the web - and take it to bits.
Which sites work well ? Why ?
Which sites do you want to return to ? Why ?
Which sites have most traffic ? Why ?
Now think about tools. The web is built with some pretty basic tools. HTML, PHP and Javascript are the big guys - these are languages. But they're not languages like French or Japanese (which are huge) these are tiny little languages which follow very basic rules. They are 'objct oriented' languages and you can learn the principles of OOP (object oriented prgramming) in two minutes. It goes like hits: If this, then that - else - if the other then the other. ) no joke - that really is it. But learning to tell a computer to think like that (in code) can take a while. Start with a few basic tutorials - just google "Kirupa" and take your pick from the lessons.
You'll need some space on the net to test out your creations (can be had for free with google and yahoo etc) and before long you'll need to learn about FTP (file transfer protocol) but it's child's play so no worries. All you need to know about images is that they need to be 72dpi (dots per inch) and if you have an eye then great - if not - go back to school and take A level art at adult college.
Once you have your head around HTML look into php (very powerful) and SQL (database stuff) then Javascript (cool front end stuff) and maybe Flash (animation and deeply cool, powerful application building).
But.... don't expect to know much in a day - it's like anything - confusing and opaque at first but the harder you work, the luckier you'll get.
Best wishes
Monty
PS - php is the future and I can very much recommend this forum:
PHP Discussion Forum List • PHP Developers Network
A decent php developer can make £350 a day in London - learn it - love it !