Becoming a Web designer
Hi Amrinder,
First, let me say I feel quite honored that you ask me for advice. I can give you the following tips:
Todays web design and web developing goes beyond using FrontPage or Dreamweaver. If you would like to learn how to code web pages, do it by hand. With that, I mean use a text editor (UltraEdit, Komodo Edit etc.) and your browser (preferably Firefox). That is all you will need to get started. Do not use FrontPage, cause it produces too much unnecessary markup.
I tend to learn much from going through examples, mostly from books. Here are some titles that I can recommend (you would need to look them up on Amazon to get them):
- Designing with web standards (by Jeffrey Zeldman)
- DOM Scripting (by Jeremy Keith)
- CSS Mastery (by Andy Budd, Cameron Moll, Simon Collison)
- Bulletproof Webdesign (by Dan Cederholm)
These books (there are more, but it is a good starting point) will start from a basic level telling you what todays webdesign is about and how websites should be coded these days.
Follow websites/blogs from leaders in the industry, like:
- http://zeldman.com
- http://simplebits.com
- http://adactio.com
- http://wait-till-i.com
- http://allinthehead.com
A very important point is to do projects on your own, even if they might not be well paid. This gives you practice and the chance to further develop your skills. So if your degree course does not offer such things, try to do a web project on the side, maybe for a friend or a social organization – just to do some practice and get a feeling what it takes to make a proper site.
Hope this helps,
Klaus
This is so true. Amrinder posted the above email as reference for aspiring web designers for them to get started. I'm so happy that I'm going towards the same direction embracing hand coding & Web Standards to hone my skills. Not to mention that both of my favorite apps were mentioned, Komodo Edit and Firefox. :)
Amrinder also posted blogs that he follow. To wit, Andy Clarke, Jason Santa Maria, Shaun Inman, Khoi Vinh, Mark Boulton, Tim Van Damme, Jon Tan, Elliot Jay Stocks and Dave Shea which are web designers that I also follow.
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