Forum Moderators: mack
I have a question about what skill path I should take... My goal is to learn whether book-taught or going to a school, how to make aesthetically pleasing web pages. I have plenty of HTML, ASP, PHP, CSS experience which I have used to make some damn fine functional pages, but what I seem to lack is the ability to make them pretty. (Let's hop it's a lack of skill rather than creativity!)
I would love to hear the opinions of people who are experienced on the following points:
1) What would your recommended skill tree look like, taking into consideration my skills in HTML, PHP, etc?
2) What order would make learning easy for an old dog like me?
3) What skill would be the best "Bang-for-the-buck" to jumpstart me into creativity?
4) What overall skills should I know well before I could consider taking on side jobs? (I'd hate to take a job and then find out it's over my head!)
5) In the event that I am just too old to learn so much, what should I look for in a rental-developer?
Many thanks for the hopefully ensuing opinions :)
You might want to consider taking some Photoshop courses and then do some reasearch on web design that 'sells the experience'. Look at a few websites from people who proclaim to be art professionals or animation studios, and then look at how their colors flow, the tone of their site etc. From my experience, really good art skills with a statistical understanding of onsite behavior works really well to both sell the experience to the user and push them through the order process.
Make a start with HTML, then when you have a firm grasp of it move towards CSS. This will provide you with the knowledge that you need to construct pages. HTML is the building block, css is the styling.
Once you have mastered html and css you should then move towards some form of scripting language. This will allow you to make your pages actually "do things".
HTML and css are a must if you want to do anything web related. The scripting side of things allows you to add functionality to your sites.
The most popular scripting languages are Perl. Php and Asp. Each has it's own benefits. It really depends on your intended use as to what scripting language you should use.
Mack.
Ok, I understand you are fluent in PHP, HTML, CSS and such - and you are really looking for a path to develop an ability to create visually appealing and stunning web sites, that makes people go :-Omfg. And if it turns out you're not cut out to be an overlord designer, how do you find someone to do it for you. Correct?
1) What would your recommended skill tree look like, taking into consideration my skills in HTML, PHP, etc?
- Illustrator & Photoshop
- Psychology
- - Cognitive psychology
- - General behaviourism
- - Social psychology
- Interaction design
- - User interface design
- Graphic design
- - Layout
- - Typography
- - Color harmonies
..more
2) What order would make learning easy for an old dog like me?
Graphic design is by far the most rewarding and fun to do - if you get to print! (The feeling of holding something you've done in your hand is very special.)
- I'd say start off with Graphic design along with Photoshop and Illustrator AND pen and paper (no matter how ugly you draw - always doodle.). Good entry point: Start collecting club flyers - they are often at the cutting edge of the graphic design world. Then just start making mockup flyers for your own clubs - in Photoshop, Illustrator AND paper. "Club BadGoat goes Ibiza" :) Start out very loose in your endavour. No real goal, no requirements - just play! Then gradually raise the bar. Strive to get more and more rational - important step. Start asking "why, is this flyer more appealing that this one? why? why?" - a lot. Then start bringing in the theory. Go deeper and deeper. Typography, colors, etc. etc. Do lots of mockups of lots of different things. Play.
- After maybe 6 months to some years (depending on effort), when you're starting to feel that at least Photoshop is _fun_ (hopefully Illustrator and pen and paper too), then it's time to maybe pick up some books on cognitive psychology and such. Read your way into interaction and user interface design.
- By now you'll have a completely different view on web design :)
3) What skill would be the best "Bang-for-the-buck" to jumpstart me into creativity?
- You need something that gives you a quick reward. Graphic design is the answer. If you can hook up some clients and do some cheapo flyers then that's the way to get excited! Small, graphically intense jobs with a printed result is high reward. Getting clients is of course not easy. Don't care. Do flyers for yourself. Do wacko business cards for your friends, online post cards - whatever. Small and simple graphic stuff, heck do icons, but prefarably printed stuff.
(I know it sounds weird to do print when you want to do web - but it's about the trip. If you don't like it then of course don't do it :)
4) What overall skills should I know well before I could consider taking on side jobs? (I'd hate to take a job and then find out it's over my head!)
Photoshop and Illustrator.
The thing is, you really need experience. I'd say just be open if you get clients. Tell them you're new. If you mess up then they won't have to pay, and they'll get what you did up untill you messed up. Kinda fake it till you make it - but openly.
5) In the event that I am just too old to learn so much, what should I look for in a rental-developer?
Rational thinking coupled with a highly evolved _control_ over creativity. You don't want the random guy - that makes a good looking site in 1 out of 5. And you don't want they guy that can't answer when you ask why stuff look like they do.
Yikes.. tea..
Ok, hope that helped :)
although getting basic skills using photoshop/illustrator or whatever is required ... a decent book for beginners or evening classes or online tutorials is enough.
i would employ someone to come up with website designs for you, an art student or suchlike, get them to do the design as a flat finished product in photoshop or illustrator ... this should be cheap, as they are doing no coding just doing a layout and colour scheme and so on
... and this is where your skill comes in, use your knowledge of html and css to convert their design into an actual webpage that works and is fast.
alternatively explore some of the template sites ... in my experience you can find great designs and layouts there - however the way they are implimented is usually terrible. so you can use the template as your starting point and then hack it to pieces and put it back together using your own html and css.
basically i guess i'm saying ... get a designer to do the groundwork for you, then develop from that point yourself, it is much easier to develop a theme that someone else has already come up with than to start from scratch.
[also before some smartass jumps on the word cheap that i used above - i use the term relatively. eg it is a lot cheaper to get the foundations/layout of a page done than for the finished product]
