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laghan123 · Jul 13, 2002, 02:49 PM

Would love opinions on how one gets started in learning
Web site design. What's best software? Best books for
beginners? thanks!

godzookie2k · Jul 13, 2002, 03:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by laghan123:
Would love opinions on how one gets started in learning
Web site design. What's best software? Best books for
beginners? thanks!<hr /></blockquote>Well, I'm not really sure how to answer the question, you'll get ten thousand different answers no doubt. Also make sure you know and recognize the difference between a web developer/programmer and a web DESIGNER. different sides to the same coin. Web DESIGN isn't much different from print on a fundamentals level, both have similar principles at the basic level. The web stuff is more dynamic/interactive obviously.

So, how about I just tell you what *I* use, make your decisions based on trying out everything else. Sidenote: aside from <a href="http://www.caffeineatmyhomework.com" target="_blank">personal</a> work, I don't mess in the web too much these days, I'm quite disenchanted with it to be honest and I might turn this into a rant, but I did it for a while. For coding, I use the dreamweaver/bbedit two hit combo. learn html at the very least, its a good thing. Recently I heard that golive is great for those who don't know html, while dreamweaver is good for those that do, but thats a hotly debated topic, though I agree with the statement. I layout everything in illustrator/photoshop/etc first and then breakit up and bring it into graphic form or flash or shockwave or whatever my predetermined solutuion is. For type, of late I've been experimenting with making single frame flash movies and using them as type graphics just because they maintain the vectors nicer than a gif at a reasonable file size. I'm familiar with flash, its a great technology, I use it in sites, but its rare for me to build an entire site as one giant flash movie. thats bad. I'm also familiar with backend technologies and cdrom/web app programs like director. Book wise, for any designer I'd reccomend 'Looking Closer 3', 'Elements of Typographical Style', 'Grid Systems'. For flash monkeying around: 'Flash deconstructed' And just about anything from the friends of ed publishers. Oreilly's books are unmatched when it comes to needing a reference on just about any programming language you can concieve of. Of course the HTML 4 spec bible is essential to have. Multimedia: Director 8.5 official and Director 8.5 demystified are bibles to me. Sitting next to me currently I'm reading 'PHP for Flash' and 'Server-side Flash'. Good luck and welcome to a very competitive, very catty, and (as far as I'm concerned) quite possibly one of the future downfalls of our civilization, field. Its alot of fun and alot of work.

Griggsy · Jul 18, 2002, 04:30 PM

I go on about this place a lot, but I wish it existed when I was first dabbling, for the basics and where you need to start try <a href="http://www.jessett.com" target="_blank">Jessett</a> Let me know what you think!

Raman · Jul 21, 2002, 07:43 PM

Well first off I'd probably read a book like "web design the complete reference" - it's a thick read but it goes by fast as it's alot of fluff. You basically need to know the ins and outs of people and user interfaces (since that's most likely what you're building).

You also want to pick your set of tools. If you are used to using Adobe products then try the Adobe tools. I personally use Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks (4.0, not MX because MX sucks). I'm a pure developer who is trying to become a designer wannabe so my needs are probably a little different than yours.

If you're one of those awesome creative types who could care less what's going on behind the scenes in code then more power to you. If you want to know about the plumbing then you'll need to learn HTML and JavaScript at a minimum. If you're doign database stuff or any other server side stuff then you'll need to learn JSP, ASP, PHP, whatever...

Do lots of practice websites - blogs, whatever... try out different things, see what others are doing and how/why they're doing it.

ASK. Most people are cool and will help. There are a TON of sites on the web to help.

Good luck.

darylwm · Jul 25, 2002, 09:37 AM

<a href="http://www.webmonkey.com" target="_blank">Webmonkey</a> is also a pretty good resource for all things about the web. The have beginner and advanced sections and many tutorials. The last time I was there, one of their tutorials actually let you type out the code in a window and submit it to see what it would look like on the net. You could easily do the same thing with a text editor and a browser, but this was a step by step tutorial for learning the basics of HTML.

Aside from that, I would pick up a HTML for Dummies book, or my personal favorite: The Visual Mastery book on HTML. It's a thick book, but it's full of pictures and images that helped me learn very quickly. (being visually oriented!

)

Once you get the basics down, start looking through design magazines and web design books and try to recreate the fancy stuff on your own. That will give you some experience and allow you to put your own spin on different ideas out there.