Chnage of career...(into web design)

[dbov22]

Hello,

I know that asking questions as a first thread is frowned upon but I assure you, I regularly access this forum and browse around.

I am stuck in a job I absolutely hate that is making me completely miserable and I have already handed in my resignation, I do have alternative employment arrangements in place and that'll cover my financial needs... just.

I have always loved designing and web design (did both as GCSE and AVCE subjects) to excellent grades so I have the basics. I am very keen to learn as many skills as possible relating to photoshop and any recommended web design software.

Can you please recommend any software, books, website, youtube videos that will be useful to help me learn how to produce efficient and proffesional websites?

Any inspirational stories of anyone else who has gone into this line of work and made a success will also be welcome!!

Thanks all

Dan

 

[FabienO]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18205804

 

[spengos]

I work for a design agency as a Graphic/web designer. It's ok and you get a good amount of job satisfaction when you see your work online and even better if you receive positive feedback. However, it is hard work. If you're lucky enough to work for a big trendy agency then you get to put a bit more time and thought into your work, but the smaller agencies can make you feel a bit like a factory worker sometimes. Working to tight deadlines while making sure the quality of work is top notch isn't easy and you'll often get stressed out and frustrated. But hey, that's work right?

If you're starting out then I'd just get right down to learning. Get to know Fireworks or Illustrator as well as you can, you can self teach yourself most of it but watch videos, read tutorials to learn the basics. You don't need to know about every single tool and feature. Just get comfortable creating the graphics you need to produce. It's always best to keep things as simple as you can. Remember that whatever you design you need to convert to html so know your limits(no complicated layouts). Most graphics for web now are pretty basic shapes and clean designs, so get familiar creating those. Also learn how to use the path/shape tool so you can plot your own shapes and learn to manipulate lines/curves. Learn about layers and using them to keep your drawings organised and tidy. Learn about grouping objects so you can easily move things around. Also, label your layers and objects.

Learn about colours. Which colours compliment each other, which one's don't. Learn about colour contrast and use of colour. Learn about fonts and alignment. Do some reading about branding basics. Lots of books on Amazon about graphic design.

Get to know CSS and HTML very well. Get on the W3schools website and learn the basics. The rest will come through experience and practice. To learn CSS get something like this book. Its a bit advanced in places so learn the basics first, but it has some very useful info inside.

When creating html/CSS use Firefox. I find if I develop in FF then there's a lot less cross-browser tweaking to be done afterwards. If you go by IE6 or 7 then you'll have more work. Just make sure you have a way to test on other browsers too, as there's always a few tweaks to be made. Firefox also has the most useful tool to a front end developer, Firebug. This is an Addon for FF and you will find it invaluable for degugging CSS and seeing whats happening behind the scenes. Another good Addon is the W3C validator as that will help you keep your html valid.

Lastly, find insiration. Even the best designers get their ideas from somewhere. Start building a library of design resources. Google "web design inspiration" or similar and get a feel for the trends and check out the techniques used by the best. Also start building bookmarks for sites where you can get free stock photos, icons, vectors, etc. You'll need these when you're producing concepts early on.

Hope this helps.