Wanting to become a Web-Designer/ Where does one start?
Question:
I am amazed at all the information out there on this and am a bit overwhelmed. I almost signed up with a techschool that offered a certification in 2 months for CIW MSD, but I passed on the $10,000. loan they offered.
I KNOW I can do this. Web design jobs are crazy right now. I am hoping someone who has done this can point me in the right direction.
Thank you
Answer:
I recently was approached by a friend of a friend to produce them a modelling website. I said yes.
What i didn't tell them was i had never done a web-page before!! Well I downloaded a program called coffeecup that gives you fairly clean code (compared to Frontpage), and used its visual editor to start. I then looked at the code it had produced to see what was going on. After also looking up different HTML tags and how to do tables and such, it was much easier and i was now able to write HTML without using the visual editor.
I then had to tackle PHP to do a few bits. I used these websites to get what i wanted.
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/inde...
http://www.zend.com/php/index.php...
http://www.devtek.org/tutorials/image_ga...
http://www.webdeveloper.com/
Anyway i went from knowing nothing to producing a website, with changing images, a web based contact form and a shopping cart (short list) in about 2 weeks of on and off looking at it after work.
It is more than possible to learn to do web design in short amounts of time. Obviously for more complex features it just takes longer, but i have found all information available on the web that i need. Certainly no need for a 10,000 course. Also simply look at the source for websites to see what others are doing.
Get a project to work on, research the web and do it!
Good luck and enjoy.
For my small triumph, visit http://www.seenmodels.com
know html? html language is the base of the internet pages, you type something in the notepad and then when you save it in the .html format you get a web page, try it, and yes one more thing, you just go to view and then source, of any web page, e.g. this one, you will get the source code, and you can use it in your own page, easily.
guru.com or rentacoder.com
You start by knowing html. Then you learn to use Dreamweaver to make web pages. Then you need to learn mysql, and about 6 other languages.
How can you learn enough in 2 months to make complex websites?
You have to enjoy sitting at the computer for 12 hours a day learnign the languages. It is not easy and cannot be done in 2 months. It is a lot of very hard work.
I have been making websites for five years and still don't know enough to make super complex ones like Amazon. I don't have the patience to put up with the tedium of learning those languages.
It is not a matter of being certified, it is a matter of can you produce a huge complicated site and do you have a portfolio of sites you have done?
Yes you can come up with an amateur site in a couple of weeks on your own. Nothing to it.
But no one is going to hire you as a web designer if that is all you can come up with, something that any guy working an hour a night for two weeks can produce with website editors that are for newbies.
There is a big difference between a professional looking site such as http://www.chanel.com and the site mentioned by the guy that made a site for his friend in two weeks: http://www.seenmodels.com It shows that it was his first website. This is not what an employer looking to hire a web designer is looking for. Anyone can make a page like that.
When you get to the stage that you can design a site of the caliber of www.chanel.com then you are ready to start earning a decent living being employed as a web designer.
You can still make money with the more amateur looking sites though if you work for yourself.
The site that guy below on here has a link to is not the type of site that an employer expects you to produce.
Try the local community college some of them have great programs.
To tell you the truth i never took any course or study by books... But i am a senior Web Developer in a repected company and i'm a CEO for the website http://nuxdesign.com
My suggestion is use frontpage or dreamwaver and try to make a website out of it for a porfolio. just keep trying.. first try to make a website's for pulic use and free to increse your knowladge.. Don't worry pulic website still make money.. so you won't weaste your time.. i will give you some resouce link check it out... and you can use those for build, Upgrading, and Adding stuffs
Some simple steps:
- Learn HTML
- Master HTML
- Learn Graphic design
- Master Graphics design
- Learn or several web programming language(s).
- Master this/these language(s).
When u r done with this then u should be a proffesional web designer...
More Questions & Answers...