Is it a good practice to throughly learn web design?

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niftyg

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Jun 8, 2010
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Vancouver Island, Canada
I was thinking about how useful it is to throughly learn web design. I'm talking about the skills to make a really good looking, professional website. I realize knowing a bit is good, but I mean a lot.


Because when you think of this, if your idea is good enough, it should be able to be outsourced (not necessarily cheap). It seems it can save you a lot of time and be able to crank out vast amount of content in a short time.

So who think it's useful to learn web design / web development throughly?
 


If you plan on designing sites for other people, then yes, you'll probably want to learn as much as you can about all the different aspects of web design. The more tools you have the better you'll be. However, if you just want to do your own projects, it's pretty easy to buy a nice Wordpress theme and have a site up and running in a few hours. Though there's nothing wrong with learning come basic html, css and php though, even if you just use a platform like Wordpress.
 
I can see only one way of learning to do stuff well -- do it a lot. You can read gazillion books about how to play basketball, but it won't make you a good player. Many books will make sense only after hands on experience.
 
Bah.

If you're getting into Internet Marketing, design is only one of many components you need to know (before you're ready to outsource/hire everything).

My philosophy: Learn as LITTLE as you can about technology in order to get a site launched, looking good, and making money.

For small to medium-sized sites, the Wordpress platform has everything you need, including a crap ton of great themes that you can hack to make do what you want.

Do I know PHP? Yes. But do I KNOW PHP? Hell no. Same goes for CSS. I can take someone else's, make it work, make it SEO'd and pretty, and then it's time to move on to the important stuff - marketing. That's where the real learning is.
 
Learning web design isn't difficult. Get the basics: Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop etc. There are a ton of tutorials on Youtube that teach you every aspect of this stuff.

Photoshop skills are particularly helpful for creating good FB ads or banners etc. I learned all of this stuff simply because I don't like relying on some designer to finish my shit before I can move forward on something.
 
There's no real need, in fact it can be detrimental to your efforts. Your mind might not be tuned to learning technical stuff and it simply might just not register with you. What might be easy or straightforward to some can be an impossible mountain to climb for others.
 
Try learning it yourself. If it comes to you with a decent amount of effort, keep going forward with it. If it's hard as shit to you and you don't like it, then don't fret and outsource it. I learned to make websites using HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP and so forth, but I'm just terrible at the design aspect. Because of that, I usually outsource the design of the site then code it myself. You might be like me or be the other way around (great with design but terrible with the coding aspect of it). You never know until you get out there and try it.
 
You can get by with just using templates, or if you want to get creative... get dreamweaver or somethin similar and just design off of tables
 
If you want to learn web design, start studying design patterns. There are design patterns for software as well as the artistic stuff. This way, if you see something out there you like, you'll know what it's called.

At the very least, this will let you know what to search for when you want to see some more examples. Also, it helps a lot on the communication in the event you need to work for/with someone else with the same knowledge.

Along with design patterns, you'll need to know about the different design standards. Professionals follow standards not so much for themselves, but for the people who come behind them when it comes time to make changes.

I forget the exact figure, but (for software ) somewhere around 90% of the people who take on a job will be working on something that was built by someone else. Also, about 85% of a company's in-house software budget goes toward maintenance.

The technical details like the syntax and platforms will always be changing. That's what APIs are for. You'll also find that a lot of the newer stuff has been built on top of older, familiar stuff. Focus more on the how and why, once you know this, the what will come easy.
 
Find an amazing site you like and try to make something comparable. Just dive into it, when you don't understand a step in the creation process google it.
 
sapphirescales said:
Try learning it yourself. If it comes to you with a decent amount of effort, keep going forward with it. If it's hard as shit to you and you don't like it, then don't fret and outsource it. I learned to make websites using HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP and so forth, but I'm just terrible at the design aspect. Because of that, I usually outsource the design of the site then code it myself. You might be like me or be the other way around (great with design but terrible with the coding aspect of it). You never know until you get out there and try it.
Click to expand...

This. I'm the other way around. To quote ChrisS, coding makes me want to knife kittens. Design comes much more naturally to me and I really enjoy it.

jryan21 said:
If you want to learn web design, start studying design patterns. There are design patterns for software as well as the artistic stuff. This way, if you see something out there you like, you'll know what it's called.

At the very least, this will let you know what to search for when you want to see some more examples. Also, it helps a lot on the communication in the event you need to work for/with someone else with the same knowledge.

Along with design patterns, you'll need to know about the different design standards. Professionals follow standards not so much for themselves, but for the people who come behind them when it comes time to make changes.

Focus more on the how and why, once you know this, the what will come easy.
Click to expand...

This is really good advice. Learn the specific names of the elements involved in page design. Learn the names of design styles, the functions of the different design programs, and the basic fuctions of HTML PHP & CSS. It really helps you communicate with people you hire.
 
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