Becoming a Website designer - what courses?

[allthingsgifts]

Hi
I was wondering what courses / qualifications you need to have to be a web designer, is there a professional body. What qualifications would a web design company be looking for when taking on a trainee? Just keeping my options open just incase the website doesn't work out! Any help or links would be much appreciated.
Regards
Lianne

[Logistik]

Hiya Lianne,

Im not 100% sure on the exact course myself, but iv wanted to go into this before so would love to hear the replies.

i filled out a form on a page a while back and had someone calling me all the time trying to sell courses to me so id be sure to be careful about things like that, seems a bit dodgy to me =]

go through a college, and do a course in asp.net or dreamweaver

if you look on some degree's at universities and see what they say in the web design ones, like which programs they would be trained to use on the degree

[HC-Martin]

I think going to college/univesity to learn it would be a waste of time, as they tend to teach out of date technologies.

You'd do much better self-teaching from the web IMHO.

[Signify_1]

Get some books read and learn. The web is a great source for learning to write HTML, start with some small web site tutorials and get the basics. There a lot of tutorials if you search in google. Then start learning more advanced web developement like CSS. this is a great place to start. davesite.com

Taz

[topaffiliategirl]

I would do a distant learning course, as said unis are a little behind with technology, css and html are important ones to get a good grasp of, then learn asp/php or .net and you'll have set yourself up to have a great chance.

[allthingsgifts]

Hi
I've been having a look at the distance learning courses and worry that i won't understand it as well if I just read a book, i find it easier to understand something if i'm shown what to do and can put it in to practice. I've found these
http://www.uk-open-learning.com/CartV3/Details.asp?ProductID=184
http://www.ciwcertified.com/certifications/program.asp
http://www.icslearn.co.uk/it-technical-courses/web-technology-development/web-design/

[essexboyracer]

I would learn yourself, although this approach does need a high level of passion for web design/development. I would focus on the area that interests you the most initially, then as you start to ask yourself questions like "How do i do...?" you'll find yourself getting into other areas of web design. This approach also requires you to be a good self-starter, I am assuming that you are as you're posting on these forums!

If you don't have any clients yet, build something for yourself (or friends), based on an interest that you (they) have. Makes learning so much more relevant. Otherwise you'll end up roaming around trying out all these web techniques but with no real world application to apply them to - you'll soon loose interest and forget what you learnt.

Have a start here: www.sitepoint.com. Throughout 8 years of doing web design/development it is the one resource that has remained constant and trustworthy.

--------------------------------------
Tring Web Design

[MikeBzr]

Chalk another one up in the 'self-taught' column; personally I think its the best way to approach this field. I second sitepoint as a good place to go, but recommend their books more - particularly the ones on CSS

[essexboyracer]

definetly mike, I got one through work and I keep going back to it. Saves time

[JoyDivision]

The point of university is not to teach you how to write CMS/XHTML or what ever, but how to understand how that works.

University is a lot lot deeper than web technologies. The subject is very deep (accessability/usabability etc etc).

[mke]

CSS is the first thing to learn after basic HTML. Forget asp, it only works on M$ servers, which accounts for less than a third of the servers on the web. Leave DW alone. If you are going to learn how to construct web sites, do not learn how a piece of software which could become obsolete tomorrow can construct web sites for you. Learn to construct web sites.

Learn how to use those tools available to you, but never, ever, learn to rely upon them.

[Burden]

i really want to learn CCS and PHP.

Everything seems to be PHP these days, whats the best ways to learn?
I slowly but surely done HTML online with a great guide.

[MikeBzr]

Personally I'd recommend honig your xhtml/css skills before delving into php, as theres little point being able to create a magnificent backend for the site if the frontend is a shambles.

I'd go for books first rather than online tutorials since you're not only more likely to find a better structured introduction to the language, but they also force you to type out the code and actually learn it rather than just copying and pasting from a website. 'Sitepoint' and 'Visual Quickstart' books are generally good, as are anything produced by 'Friends of ED' or 'Pragmatic Programmers'

[DotNetWebs]

...Forget asp, it only works on M$ servers, which accounts for less than a third of the servers on the web...

That’s a bit of a narrow view point IMO. “Less than a third of the servers on the web” is still a LOT of servers.

Also asp.net (‘classic’ asp has long since been outdated) probably accounts for a higher proportion of enterprise applications. Compared to other technologies there tend to be less asp.net developers who are consequently often in higher demand and therefore may be able to command higher salaries / fees.

I would recommend trying out as many different technologies as possible, so you can get a feel for which ones would be best suited to your needs and ambitions.

Regards

Dotty

[MikeBzr]

I kind of agree with DotNetWebs - although I don't use ASP at all, its no question that there is still a high demand for it, with a much smaller number of developers available compared to other fields - so if you're looking to squeeze yourself into a niche, you could do worse than this one. Same goes for emerging languages like RubyOnRails.

[tony28]

I agree with others, learn from the internet, when I first started out I used a WYSIWYG editor I was creating but not knowing behind the scenes, so wrong.
Since learning coding in HTML, CSS and basic PHP everything I do now is coded, so I know what it does and where it is.
Once I got going I found it easy.

I learnt from the Internet, PHP for me was mainly for contact forms and I also skimed the top of MYSQL database, powerful stuff.

With technology growing fast the internet is the place, If you want to learn you will stick with it.

If I need to learn something Internet for me.

Hope this helps.