How To Become A Web Designer

So you want to become a web designer? I always get asked how I got into the Web Design Industry?  and was it difficult? Its not difficult at all!! You just need some drive and a lot of enthusiasm.

People often ask “can you become a web designer by self study?”

I have been building websites for over 15 years now (12 years commercially), when I started things were easier, the industry was relatively new and there were no where near as many designers as there are these days. However I think my tips below are still very relevant today, please read on.

1 – Anybody can do it!

Its not rocket science! learning to become a web designer isn’t as hard as people think, yes you need certain attributes to be successful as follows…

• Be Motivated – You need to have motivation to learn, without it you will struggle.
• Be Persistent – Try and try again, you will inevitably get things wrong when you are learning.
• Creativity – To be a great designer you need to have that creative flair, if you don’t have it, don’t worry, just become excellent at coding!
• Self Studying – You will need to teach yourself, and self study is a huge part of progressing in web design.

2 – Where To Start

You need to learn the basics of the web! learn and read about what makes up the internet, how IP addresses work, what a webserver is, also the different programming languages available to us web designers.

XHTML & CSS are essential these are the simplest languages to learn and the most useful (in my opinion). There are plenty of tutorial sites online I would recommend either W3Schools – www.w3schools.com or HTMLDOG – www.htmldog.com.

If you want to be extra swish you can learn HTML5, but be careful as this isn’t fully supported across all browsers yet.

3 – Get Coding

Whilst you are learning to code, I would strongly suggest you keep your “tool belt” fairly sparse. I always tell people to keep things simple and code using “Note Pad” only or “TextEdit” for Mac users. This will force you to learn how to code correctly, and will teach you the “syntax” of the languages, as you will discover later on in your career, syntax is important and languages like ASP & PHP rely on it being correct.

Once you are comfortable with the basics of coding, it might be time to “invest” in software to help you. The industry standard for Web Designers is Adobe Dreamweaver. however this is expensive, I would look instead at using “Komodo Edit” this is free!!

Tools such as these make coding faster and easier, as they tend to have a “predictive text” type of feature, similar to your mobile phone. They also have built in functions which will help you produce your code.

4 – A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

To succeed in web design, every web designer needs to master a “graphics package” the industry standards for web designers are Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks. Again these are very expensive, but there are cut down versions you can get such as Photoshop Elements.

The process of designing a website generally starts with a wireframe or prototype, which is then put together in the graphics package. The web designer then transfers the design into XHTML & CSS code.

5 – Practice Makes Perfect

Like anything from learning to ride a bike to playing the guitar, the more you do something the better you will get. Web Design is no different, the more practice you get at mocking up designs in your graphics package and transferring them across into code the better you will become.

6 – Be Social, Join The Community

No I don’t mean go and join your local community group, I mean get involved with other designers, look at what they are producing and try to use it as inspiration, get talking to other designers find out how they do things, which sites they use, which blogs they read.

This tip is a million times easier in the days of social media, when I started learning there was no Twitter or FaceBook, hell even Google didn’t exist! Use social media to find other designers and get to know them, talk to them and often you will find that they will love to help you learn.

Eventually the relationships you build here may even help you find a job!

FaceBook especially is a good place to start, there are literally tons of FaceBook pages and Groups dedicated to web design, LinkedIn is another great place to find web design groups to help develop your skills.

And finally Twitter…. I love Twitter, those who have worked with me in the past will know how much I adore it. People often don’t “get it” initially, Twitter should be used to find information like any regular search engine, the benefit if Twitter is that search results are “real time” and often point you directly to the person providing you with the information!

Use Twitter as a “networking tool” build your contacts and get talking to people! ( @Andy_Morley is my Twitter name.)

7 – Finally, Keep Learning

The Internet is a fast moving place, the web design industry needs to keep up, there are always new technologies, new websites, new techniques and softwares becoming available, it is one of (if not the fastest) growing industries in the world.

YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO BE LEFT BEHIND!

Remember to continue learning, keep reading the industry blogs, keep talking to other designers to discover the latest tricks of the trade.

Thanks for reading.

Andy Morley.