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Website design collage education

by ken150
12 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Hey to all who reads my post,

I have been looking to get in to website design, and can't really figure out what classes, or programs to buy. I have looked high and low, and have even taken some single classes at the local community collage here where I live. The teachers at this collage I have gone to keep telling me I should take Photoshop, but I don't think this is what I am after (at least not right now).

So my question is, what or where did you learn website design at, and what would you say is the best course of action to take? There are So many areas out there, and you can start a collage course, or buy in to a DVD course only to find out you wasted your money on something you did not want, or need.

The program from Adobe I think I would like to learn is illustrator, because I hear it focuses on both Photoshop, and on the Dream Weaver side of things (correct me if I am wrong here).

I know about looking at you tube to learn things, but it is not very in depth, or starts like you already know the basics of things. What I am looking for, is to start at the beginning of the learning curve, to the end where I know my way around websites like the back of my hand.

Any direction would be of great help here, because of the vast choices in this area.....Thanks Ken
#collage #education #website
  • Profile picture of the author SDStudio
    Hi Ken,

    I would check out Online video tutorials & training | lynda.com. You will find some good classes, programs, teachers and tutorials on that site. All this can be done online...

    Cheers,
    ~Al
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  • Profile picture of the author mafai44
    Team tree house has a really awesome program, you have to pay but the content is worth it. That's where I learned a lot of my web development skills. It all depends on what exactly you want to learn, are you interested in DESIGNING websites and making it look all sparkly with graphics and fonts, or are you looking to actually develop it and make it function like clickable pages and buttons, etc. Some good programs are photoshop and dreamweaver they are expensive but just torrent them like everyone else does.

    Tuts plus has really good courses , it costs money.
    https://tutsplus.com/

    Lynda is good
    Online video tutorials & training | lynda.com

    Team Tree House..
    http://teamtreehouse.com/

    W3Schools is a must if you don't know the basics, definitely check it out.
    HTML Tutorial
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael71
    w3fools.com ... lol

    Learning by doing is the best way... tons of good tutorials out there, no need to pay.
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    HTML/CSS/jQuery/ZURB Foundation/Twitter Bootstrap/Wordpress/Frontend Performance Optimizing
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    Need HTML/CSS help? Skype: microcosmic - Test Your Responsive Design - InternetCookies.eu

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  • Profile picture of the author Patrick
    I would also definitely not recommend you to pay for anything if you are starting out in this field. There are loads and loads of tutorials out there for free.

    Also after reading your post, I think first you need to decide what you really want to do. Whether you want to "design" sites or whether you want to "develop" sites. A lot of people ( the so called gurus and experts ) brainwash your mind with flashy texts and images, forcing you to buy things they are selling, but they really don't tell you the difference between "design" and "development".

    If you want to "design", then maybe you should look into yourself and see if you have the creative skills to go into this area. Creativity is a natural tool, it can't be purchased from anywhere.

    If you want to "develop" sites, then I guess you should go through the basics of HTML/CSS first and try to understand the basic structure for a simple HTML page and how to modify that using CSS.

    And as Michael said, you can't learn unless you start doing it. Don't waste your time in reading the crap that the so called "gurus" out there are asking you to read. Start creating basic HTML pages. Choose one website ( simple one ), try to mimic that page, make it look exactly the same. If you are stuck in one situation, google it or youtube it, tons of free information out there.
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  • Profile picture of the author AFineWebDesign
    These are the programs and resources I use on the day to day:

    Photoshop - Need to at least learn it, even if you are just coding mainly.

    Dreamweaver - Easiest to use for hand coding and checking your code

    Microsoft Webmatrix - For messing around locally with wordpress or any website you are working on.

    Amazon Web Services (Learn it!) - You will be able to host your websites for free in the beginning for testing, just need to learn how to work simple commands in Linux. If this seems to advance just use simple shared hosting from anyone reliable.

    Google Chrome Browser - Developers Tools (this will be your best friend, just checking out other peoples website code and messing around with it in developers tools, yes you can change the CSS or HTML code and watch the result in real time)

    This should be a good start for programs to use. For info on coding just Google whatever you need to learn to do and you will find hundreds of FREE tutorials that are better than what most schools will teach you for a ton of money.

    Oh forgot to add FileZilla for FTP
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    • Profile picture of the author pcue
      I wanted to start a company that provides online marketing services to individuals & businesses that want more traffic & leads .

      First.. I learned how to build sites with wordpress.

      Second... I started learning how to do seo , ppc, etc.

      Third... I learned how to provide marketing solutions that drive traffic & leads for my clients.

      I got the first few clients under my belt then I partnered with a company in the Philippines to outsource everything that I learned, web design, seo etc.

      Now I can focus on managing clients & growing my business.

      The questions you need to ask yourself are not only WHAT skills do you want to learn to do..... But also, WHY do you want to learn them.
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      • Profile picture of the author ken150
        Thanks for all the info !!!!!....Will start working on the things you all said right away.....Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketer Matt
    I'd recommend these couple to get started with:

    Learn to code | Codecademy

    https://tutsplus.com/courses/ (there are 2 free courses that are pretty good.)

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author kstep
    Most of the high-end experienced web developers claim that this code editing tool is even better than the Dreamweaver.

    And it's free. Sublime Text: The text editor you'll fall in love with
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    • Profile picture of the author stephtwy
      I learnt my web design skills in a college Malaysia Leading Art & Design College | The One Academy of Communication Design and then I graduated and started to tutor on web design subjects in the college.

      The basic things to learn about web design are:
      • web GUI (graphical user interface)
      • basic HTML & CSS

      To design a website, you can use either illustrator or photoshop, it's find, as long as the settings and the dimensions are correct. However I prefer using photoshop since it allows raster image editing, which is essential for web used.

      As for HTML & CSS, if you are good with the basic, you don't even need to spend on any program, a text editing software will allow you to build the markup, such as notepad. Software like Dreamweaver makes the coding simpler and there's user interface to guide you.

      After learning the basics, you can then learn up JQuery, Javascript, PHP... etc., for more advance developing skill.
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      Stephanie Tan
      steph[at]stephcreativ.com
      http://stephcreativ.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew H
    When I first started I found lynda.com to be really good. Lately I really like nettuts+.
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    "You shouldn't come here and set yourself up as the resident wizard of oz."
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    • Profile picture of the author redraider2013
      I find it funny to hear all these people tell you not to pay. The problem is, you don't know what you need to know and it what order to learn it. Lynda.com and Treehouse are fine but expensive.

      Visit Train Simple - they're just as good if not better than the other sites for way, way less money.
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