Where Can I Find Good Web Design Advice?

Learning web design can be quite confusing as thereHTML was created by the creator of the World
is such a myriad of different tutorials and learningWide Web, Tim Burners-Lee, at the turn of the 90s,
hubs on the net. Many of the top web designerswith CSS following a few years later. The idea behind
have learnt their trade not through formal educationCSS was the separation of style and content. Today,
and degree courses, but because they areaspects of a web page such as layout, fonts and
autodidacts, that is, they are self-taught.colour are controlled by CSS and not by HTML as
Even at this stage in the 21st century, universitiesthey used to be.
and higher education facilities are not geared up toAfter my brief evening course I sought out other
teaching the new media, so those wanting to learnsources of information on the net and in the
the necessary skills have had to find their ownbookshops. In particular, there are two series of
sources of education. If you are just starting downbooks I would recommend. The first is Hands-On
the web design road you too may not have theTraining, produced by Their guides are written by the
option of attending a course and so are looking forworld's top web designers and often come with an
alternative sources of information.accompanying DVD-ROM. also has a whole host of
Web design classes aren't a possibility for everybodyonline video tutorials too that are well worth
as many out there work full-time and have neitherpurchasing. The second recommendation is O'Reilly
the money nor the time to attend college.Media who have been producing technology learning
However, many learning institutions run part-timeresources since 1978, although perhaps it is best to
evening courses and only charge a minimal fee so it istackle their books after you have a little knowledge
worth ringing them up and asking for a brochure.of HTML and CSS under your belt.
They are not the type of courses that will give youAs for the net, because of what you are studying,
an in-depth understanding of web design, but theyyou'll find an abundance of quality material on the
will at least give you a basic grounding.web!
Several years ago I attended an evening course thatThere are many, many different sites and online
was teaching Dreamweaver and Flash basics, and Icommunities that pump out good, solid tutorials and
came away with at the least the fundamentals ofadvice for free. Google, truly, is your friend here and
how these pieces of software work.will help you uncover those illuminating design and
Most web designers will advise learners to stay clearcode hubs.
of Dreamweaver because it is a WYSIWYG editorOne place in particular, Sitepoint, has proven to be an
(WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Isinvaluable resource to me over the years, both as a
What You Get). This means it writes the code fornovice and still today as a professional.
you, whereas learners really need to know how toYou will always find a polite and genuinely helpful
write the code themselves.response to any question that you ask on the
However, by using the WYSIWYG features ofSitepoint forums; and, because it has existed since
Dreamweaver it really is possible to quickly build a1999, there is a huge reservoir of old threads for you
basic but visually stimulating website. It's the quickestto swim through.
way for the novice to create something completeOther sites are which is a good reference source
rather than just writing lines of code.with detailed sections on HTML and CSS and which is
Today, I still use Dreamweaver because I like itsthe best place to learn about web standards.
layout although I don't use its WYSIWYG features -When you start to learn HTML and CSS it can all
I write the code myself; and the code you need toseem a bit daunting, but if you have the time to
learn in order to be a efficient web designer isspare and the determination to apply yourself I can
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascadingguarantee that you will succeed.
Style Sheets (CSS).