Print designer needs to learn web design

AR
Posted By
Andrea_Russell
Nov 28, 2006
Views
246
Replies
5
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Closed
I am a print designer mostly. I have always avoided web design but at this point in owning my own business I see I am turning down way too much work in the form of websites. What is the easiest way to learn. I have taught myself everything I know. I use photoshop CS, In Design all of the above. Now I just need to figure out how to design a site.

I mean I know NOTHING about the web. So I feel overwhelmed with having to learn it. Should I take a class if so who teaches that. I can’t even find a class at my local colleges. I know there is Version Q in In Design. Is that different than conventional web design?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.
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Paul M Norman
Nov 28, 2006
Here’s a very good place to start: <http://www.lynda.com> You would do well to purchase a copy of Dreamweaver.
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Buko
Nov 28, 2006
I would do you good to take a class at a community college to get a basic understanding.
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Craig_Cheatham
Nov 30, 2006
One thing I’ve discovered in taking on web design is that it is a constantly changing landscape. I use Dreamweaver in combination with BBEdit and several books to try to learn HTML. The thing is that standards and conventions are constantly changing. What I learned of HTML several years ago is only partially useful because now most things are better being designed using CSS and XHTML.

So my advice is this:
You might consider working with a programmer, so that YOU would develop the visual layout and navigation, YOU supply the digital content, and YOUR PROGRAMMER handles designing good code and testing across all the browsers.

YES, take classes if you have reason to believe the teachers are high quality. READ BOOKS, lots of them, not so much on HTML, but on what constitutes good design in the web. Print design principles do translate to the web in terms of clean graphical layout with a hierarchy of ideas etc., but developing good navigation is something that print doesn’t prepare you for. Also designing so that your pages will work for the visually impared, determining what sort of platform your target audience will be using, what monitor resolution should you target, etc. One thing that drove me crazy is that on the web you can’t necessarily be assured that your text will look the way you designed it. Text often reflows and line breaks occur where you don’t intend them, all depending on the USER’S browser prefs. There are ways around this to some degree, but web pages are not as static as print is.

Good luck.

Craig Cheatham
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Pat_Gilmour
Nov 30, 2006
Andrea,

1) Learn first to build visually attractive static sites. Programming can come after that if you’re motivated.
You can learn to build static sites surprisingly quickly though there will be no bells and whistles on your first sites. Here’s how:

-Get a copy of Dreamweaver 8 and get a copy of the book Dreamweaver 8 Visual Quickstart Guide by Tom Negrino an Dori Smith. One of the problems with learning Dreamweaver is that you can learn all it’s features and still not know how to actually use them to build a site. Using this book will teach you both about Dreamweaver and basic site design. If at a later date you grow to love hand-coding, get BBEdit by Barebones software (I use it for everything now, but it would be a steep learning curve.)

2) Learn about CSS – this is style sheets for you web pages though it also allows you to control positioning of elements. Again, it’s all built into Dreamweaver, it’s vital if you want to build modern sites, but you need to know what it all actually does. The above mentioned book gives a good overview and this web site gives you a brilliant concise introduction:
<http://www.cssbasics.com/>

3) Paul’s right: you should visit <http://www.lynda.com>. But you might be better starting here: <http://www.w3schools.com/> and doing the first 3 tutorials in the top left: Learn HTML, Learn XHTML, Learn CSS

I wish you luck. Building sites is great fun if tough at first, so persevere!

Pat
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Scott_Weichert
Nov 30, 2006
I’d suggest bypassing any WYSIWYG application such as Dreamweaver or GoLive and just get BBEdit. It’s all you need and much cheaper. You’ll build better sites with BBEdit and you’ll understand the coding better in the end.

WYSIWYG applications are often the crutch that hold people back.

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