Web design is an interesting field as it combines technical skills with creativity. Also, good professionals are in high demand. Almost any business has a digital presence, not to mention individuals. And this means they need beautiful and functional websites.
If you want to learn it, this guide will help you to start the journey.
Define Your Goals
As a first step, define why you want to learn it and what you want to achieve. Perhaps you dream of pursuing a career in web design. Or maybe you want to use those skills for your personal website.
Being clear about your goals helps set realistic expectations, deadlines, and tasks. Also, it shapes the methods you will use in your learning.
If you’re pursuing a college degree, the simplest approach would be to enroll in relevant courses. However, if your major is different and you aim to educate yourself independently, you’ll need to construct your own learning plan. Don’t fret about the possibility of juggling this with other college tasks. If time is of the essence, you always have the option to pay someone to write a paper, ensuring you meet all vital deadlines. Expert professionals are available to aid with the writing, editing, and proofreading of any college paper. Therefore, whether you’re wrestling with an essay or a dissertation, they have you covered.
Experienced writers can nail any subject or topic in the shortest time. They deliver unique and well-written assignments according to your specific requirements. This is a great way to save time, keep up with the college syllabus, and devote efforts to other duties, like building new skills.
Access Available Resources
Learning web design shouldn’t be difficult or expensive. There are many resources available online. And a good portion of them is free. Before you create a roadmap of what you are going to learn, find the platforms and resources you can use.
For example, you might look into books on the matter, namely:
- HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites;
- Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide;
- Designing with Web Standards.
A good idea is to also research the college courses on the subject and find the sources used in the curriculum. This can give you an idea of where to start.
Also, consider taking online courses. If you are working on your own, online learning can be a huge opportunity. It is flexible, affordable, and often comes with college credits or certifications. For example, you can look up:
- Evanto Tuts: Responsible Web Design for Beginners;
- OpenHPI: Human-Centered Design Course;
- WebFlow University:
- Ultimate Web Design Course.
There are several excellent platforms to look for various courses, namely edX, Udemy, and Coursera.
Understand the Focus
Some might be confused at first about what comes into web design and what goes into web development. Web design concerns everything that has to do with a visual display of the website. Web development is a programming niche of building websites.
The focus of this field of knowledge is visuals and interaction. Surely, it is good to understand the basics of web development, particularly the front end. The back end is all that happens on the server, and the front end is what users interact with. Think of it as the front-end code being muscles and the design being skin. But there is no need to learn how to code.
You can become an excellent professional without any programming experience or knowledge.
Start with Visual Concepts
Before it is applied to a site, it is all about design. So you’ll need to know about the principles and basics of how to work with shapes, colors, and composition.
Start by reading about the key concepts in this field, including lines, shapes, textures, colors, and grids. Learn the core principles that go into any good design.
Learn Basic Elements
Complete beginners need to start from the basic elements of web design. Those are:
- Overall layout – the look of the website, how people perceive it, and how it impacts user interaction;
- Color scheme – learn the color theory and psychology behind different shades and tones. Find out what colors work together and what do not;
- Typography covers all thins fonts and sizes. Learn how to make text readable and how to format it correctly on the page;
- Navigation deals with user interactions with the site. Here the main goal is to create a simple and comfortable user experience. It needs to be intuitive and accessible;
- Content and how it impacts user activity and site performance.
Cover HTML and CSS Basics
Another important thing for students to learn is the basics of HTML and CSS. HTML is a markup that defines how elements are displayed on the browser of a user. You do not have to be an expert, but you need to have a general understanding of how it works, as it is directly linked to how elements are presented on a page.
CSS stands for cascading style sheets. It provides additional functionality on top of HTML. It is responsible for HTML elements and their appearance. Make sure you understand its logic and common concepts to get a better grip on how websites work in terms of appearance.
Learn UX
User experience is crucial for great web design. It comes with its own principles and best practices. They cover typography, colors, and layouts. Among the core principles of UX, you need to learn about user personas, information architecture, user flows, wireframes, and prototyping.
Practice
The best way to build and advance skills is to practice them regularly. Theory can only take you so far. Adopt a practical approach where you try out all the new things you just learned. Build a website with different layouts, colors, and features to get a better understanding of them.
Look up some great examples and sites for different purposes, like eCommerce, or blogging. Notice the difference in navigation, information architecture, layout, and visuals. Consider how they correspond with the main focus of a site and target audience. Try to apply this approach to your project.
In Summary
It is possible to learn web design on your own using the resources available online. Whether you are interested in it as a hobby or want to turn it into a source of income, start with the basics and build upon them. And do not forget to practice.
