What to learn?

Would-be web designer - what to learn first?

[kate theisinger]

Hi, not sure i've got this in the right place either, but here goes. I can work pretty comfortably in html, have used Dreamweaver for javascript events and some dynamic stuff; and now i'm thinking that i want to get into web design or development. As i'm going to have to fund my own training, i don't want to waste a lot of time and money learning stuff that i'm never going to use, and there seems to be so many options: css, php, perl, asp, javascript etc etc. Can anyone recommend a starting point beyond html which is likely to be of most use? Or to put it another way, if you were an employer looking to hire a junior, what skills would you absolutely require?

Thanks muchly!

[wheel]

That's a tough question - because it covers so much. A web designer or web developer are two radically different things IMO.

If you're going to be a web designer, you can learn reams about page layout, css, flast, color schemes, html tricks (I suspect there's a lot more HTML you could learn, despite what you think).

If you want to be a 'developer', then you would maybe not do so much 'design' work, but start looking at things like php, content management systems etc.

The difference is like the difference between an artist and a programmer. And there's every type of job in between. When I hire or contract, I keep everything discrete. Artists do the layout under my direction, the developer/programmer then integrates that layout into the site.

Sorry - that's weak answer....but there's so much covered in this field and most people, including the experts here, tend to have strengths in some areas at the expense of weaknesses in others.

[jatar_k]

>> waste a lot of time and money

well, you are in the right place most of the things you need to know can be learned right here.

a lot of what I have learned has stemmed from need. As I have expanded my knowledge and the sites I have worked on I have needed new things and found new requirements.

as wheel outlined, there are many avenues to what we all do. I am primarily a developer/programmer type. I know php, css, js, database stuff, web servers etc. I also know marketing and design though don't tell anyone about the design. ;)

You can rely on dreamweaver to do a ton of things for you and you may not learning any of the languages in depth, that's fine too.

The first thing to ask yourself is what it is you like/want to do?

[kate theisinger]

Thanks guys. Okay, so perhaps i need to make up my mind a bit more about exactly what i want to do in order to decide what training to get. Apart from a strong desire to hedge my bets, i'd have to say that i tend more towards the technical side of things...so say i rephrase the question and ask which skills i need to concentrate on to get into a career in web development? Also, you say there's any amount of jobs between designer and developer.. is there a good place i can look to investigate some of these roles, so i've got more idea where to head for?

'part from that, guess i'll just start creating sites for friends, and see what i end up needing to know.

Thanks again.

[Matt Probert]

which skills i need to concentrate on to get into a career in web development?

A question to which you will undoubtedly receive a hundred different answers, or possibly none at all.

From my perspective, I should argue that the two most important skills, also lacking from 99% of your competitors, are 1) communications and 2) graphic design.

From these two basic skills you can branch to any arm of publishing, beit print, broadcast or web.

Matt

[LittleAngie]

Hi there - I know what you are going through - I just started a couple of months ago (I have some programming skills) but not too good at graphic design) There are some books available though. I would say it's certainly worth investing in some books on what you want to learn and doing sites for friends or very small organisations - local churches that type of stuff will give you some experience.

Good luck

[HelenDev]

Whichever area you want to specialise in eventually, I would say it's beneficial to learn a certain amount about both the development and design aspects.

My thoughts would be, keep learning the html, as wheel says there's loads to learn, and definitely learn css.

With regard to the programming side, I would recommend php because it's quite easy to understand, it's powerful and all the resources you need are out there for free on the web.

I think that uses for javascript are a bit more limited, but it's probably worth learning some anyway because it might come in handy, and it's a good language to introduce yourself to programming.

Whichever language you decide to learn first will stand you in good stead for learning the others when the time comes.

[PumpkinHead]

Before you decide which way you want to go, try building a few sites for some friends as you say. This is how I started, and I'm pretty happy doing both design and development these days.

If friends ever ask me this question, I suggest doing things in this order..

1. HTML
2. Learn the basics of a graphics package (Logos etc)
3. CSS
4. JavaScript
5. Basics of Databases (E.g MySQL)
6. Programming (PHP or ASP etc)

Hope this helps in some way, good luck to ya :)

[createErrorMsg]

recommend a starting point beyond html

For what it's worth, I believe the natural progression from HTML is into CSS. Structure it, then style it. Database programming, server side scripting, graphics design, etc. are all important and useful, but (again, IMO) HTML and CSS are the essential two-point package for designing pages.

cEM

[artsncrafts]

Thanks for the advice here. I've been wondering the same myself.

I've been writing html for a few years, but I still find myself learning new html tricks all of the time.

[webmstr]

I personally like the WYSIWYG approach and therefore am probably a poor programmer. I use Dreamweaver, am proficient in Photoshop, and dabble in Flash, Fireworks and the like. I pretty much just start designing a site, and when it gets to a point that I have some sort of element that I want to add to the site I try to figure out how to make it myself, get it from the web and implement it and learn as I go. This might be the hard road, I am not sure as I never went to school to do this, but it is so much fun. I have a passion for the design part, and wish my programming skills were stronger. I think it would be really cool to get a collaborative company going with the posters that are interested and create the biggest, baddest web design company ever lol. That would be neat. sorry, got sidetracked!