I want to learn web design, but how hard is it?

[Alan]

I wonder how hard it is to create a membership based site with wordpress. I will respond some your messages later, gtg!

About £12 for a pro plugin -> https://premium.wpmudev.org/project/membership/ (free plugins may exist, but generally if you use a free plugin you run some support risk, as developers are not in any way oblidged to help you with issues)

 

[bigalski]

To AMAZIN

Based on what you've said, all you need to do is to go to Google and search for Free Wordpress Themes and see what you can do with Wordpress, there are also paid themes available, have a look at those too. The proof of the pudding is in the 'seeing for your self'. If you're interested in using Wordpress then all I can say is, do your own research.

The only coding I use is; to centre stuff in the HTML window when the visual window occasionaly doesn't centre something, other than that I may use the odd bit of HTML code which I've been told to use for something, or I go to one of the free HTML sites to find a bit of code, NUFF SAID!!

I haven't touched any CSS, PHP, Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, etc, in 2 years. I've used Windows Paint, used free onlne graphics maker for my graphics, I've bought professional graphics packages or images for specific things for very little money.

Other than that, if I need anything special doing I get outsourcers to do it for me for next to nothing, It's okay people telling you about stuff but how many of them are actually doing it? Use the free web design HTML, CSS, PHP resources, etc. when you need them, but as you will find out, if you use a program like Wordpress you will hardly ever visit those sites. Wordpress is FREE so you don't need to buy web creation software like Dreamweaver.

For your domain name, go to somewhere like Namecheap, about £10 per annum and for web hosting go to Hostgator - £90 per annum. Yes you can get free hosting etc. and yes you may be able to get your hosting cheaper, but it's when you have a problem you find out how good those other cheap and free providers are, been there got the T-shirt. By the way there are other good UK based providers.

Wordpress training -cost about £30
Time to be competent - if you're using it on a daily basis - about 1 month

With the other £700 I've just saved you, there are very good training courses out there for learning SEO, Getting Traffic, Learning how to setup Facebook fanpages and getting facebook traffic, etc..

After you've done all that you'll still end up with nearly half your money, so let's be careful out there.

I'm not saying that Wordpress is the be all and end all, but what do you want to be doing? spending years learning web design? or setting up websites quickly and learning how to make money from the Internet?

 

[Alan]

To AMAZIN

all you need to do is to go to Google and search for Free Wordpress Themes

PLEASE DONT do this, using Google is dangerous, you can get 2,068 free themes from the WordPress.com repository http://wordpress.org/themes/ and at least you have some quality control there.

A recent study of Googling free WordPress themes shows just how many have exploits deliberately built in http://wpmu.org/why-you-should-never-search-for-free-wordpress-themes-in-google-or-anywhere-else/

 

[bigalski]

On the subject of free and paid themes I did say that he should take a look and he needs to do his own research. Just to clarify, by look I meant for him to look and see what you can do with Wordpress websites.

Do you also mean that all the hundreds of FREE themes that are on the main Wordpress org website are also full of rogue code aswell?

By the way, there is a plugin to check to see if you've got any rogue code in a Wordpress theme. Like I said, there are people out there who give advice about Wordpress but don't always have the full facts.

One other thing, Amazin did say: QUOTE: I'm not trying to become a web developer/designer, I thought it would be good idea to learn about it so that I don't have to rely on anyone but myself. Oh well, I guess you can't know everything.

I got a quote from a web development company recently who offered to do it for £750 (after discount) and £250 per month for SEO. I estimate it will probably cost me £2k on the whole thing so I do need to think about it carefully.

 

[Alan]

I think it is all adequately covered in the link I provided.

I'm just warning those less security aware than you or I, hundreds if not thousands will read this post over time.

 

Let me guess - % keyword density, h1, h2, WP comment spam, squidoo lens, free directory submission, cold calling / emailing 30 webmasters daily asking for a link swap and maybe an EMD of you have touched lucky?

Lol ; )

supposition is the mother of all FU'S.

 

[paraleadogg]

supposition is the mother of all FU'S.

It was a very simple question but once again you cannot give a straight answer. Says it all really.

I presume you have nothing constructive to add to this entertaining exchange so we will will leave it there I guess lol

; )

 

It was a very simple question but once again you cannot give a straight answer. Says it all really.

I presume you have nothing constructive to add to this entertaining exchange so we will will leave it there I guess lol

; )

Which question was that,I must have missed it.:|

 

[paraleadogg]

Which question was that,I must have missed it.:|

Ok - not a direct question as such......but these are quotes lifted from my previous post to entice you to share your knowledge....

• "You have rubbished my opinion but at least i have offered one."
• "You haven't backed up your view with any kind of reasoning or opinion of your own."
• "I would love to hear about these "effective" practices of yours...."

Yet still I haven't seen you produce anything to back up your view that I am [in your words] talking "rubbish" lol

I'm always willing to see reason; if a suitable counter argument is put forward.

But so far you have just rubbished my opinion (which is your right) without offering any of your own.

Maybe you don't have any ; )

 

[Lolleo]

God help anyone who reads this thread...its gone way west from what the original poster intended.

The only reason I keep coming back is to watch the entertaining duel between sirearl and parasomethingdogg

I think it is all adequately covered in the link I provided.

I'm just warning those less security aware than you or I, hundreds if not thousands will read this post over time.

 

Ok - not a direct question as such......but these are quotes lifted from my previous post to entice you to share your knowledge....

• "You have rubbished my opinion but at least i have offered one."
• "You haven't backed up your view with any kind of reasoning or opinion of your own."
• "I would love to hear about these "effective" practices of yours...."

Yet still I haven't seen you produce anything to back up your view that I am [in your words] talking "rubbish" lol

I'm always willing to see reason; if a suitable counter argument is put forward.

But so far you have just rubbished my opinion (which is your right) without offering any of your own.

Maybe you don't have any ; )

"After Google rolled out Panda, Penguin and most recently Hummingbird a lot would argue SEO was now in fact dead.

Instead of worrying about SEO you are best just building the best site you can and catering to your USERS (NOT search engines)."

Afraid I reiterate SEO is far from dead and one builds sites for both the search engines and the general public.

I have shared quite a lot of my knowledge over a long period of time ,but one must retain some things in order to function as an SEO professional.

The only judges of what I do are the search engines and how much money is in the till at the end of the day,nothing else really counts to me.

 

[paraleadogg]

retain some things in order to function as an SEO professional.

BOOM!! Hahahahahaha there it is lol. I knew it.

Thanks for the laughs

and how much money is in the till at the end of the day,nothing else really counts to me

Yeah - I have found that with most SEO "professionals" lol - all about the money. Nothing else lol

 

[paraleadogg]

God help anyone who reads this thread...its gone way west from what the original poster intended.

The only reason I keep coming back is to watch the entertaining duel between sirearl and parasomethingdogg

Nothing wrong with a bit of good natured debate. Cleanses the soul lol

 

BOOM!! Hahahahahaha there it is lol. I knew it.

Thanks for the laughs



Yeah - I have found that with most SEO "professionals" lol - all about the money. Nothing else lol

I charge extra for laughs.:|

Of course its about money,I take it you work for love only.

Not just the money that goes in my till ,but the 40 million a year that goes in my associates tills.

 

[paraleadogg]

I charge extra for laughs.:|

Of course its about money,I take it you work for love only.

Not just the money that goes in my till ,but the 40 million a year that goes in my associates tills.

Of course I work for the love it - it's a vocation

And £40m a year? Oh sorry - I didn't realise you were a newbie. My apologies

 

[Swisaw]

A lot of useless clever complex jumbo mumbos have been presented for a learner who doesn't have a clue about them. He has not yet learnt to walk, they want him to run. I hope he has not been scared to give up.

It is really very easy to learn.

 

[fisicx]

^^^Agree.

• If you want to build websites from scratch you need to learn how to code using html and css.
• If you want to build themes for applications like wordpress you need to learn to code using php or asp
• If you want to create stunning layouts you need to learn code and/or how to use photoshop
• If you just want to edit exisiting websites then you can probably get away without learning any code at all.

So you need to decide exactly what it is you want to do as there are so many different skill sets required to build and effective website. I'd start here: http://webstyleguide.com/ and then here: http://www.w3schools.com/

 

[Alan]

This OP went off the idea about learning web design after the first few posts.

I totally disagree with Swisaw, its not easy. The subject is ever evolving.

 

[logicfusion]

If I was starting fresh I would do the following:-

1: Learn HTML and CSS from online web resources. (free)
1b: Learn some photoshop basics.

2: Do a couple of Open University courses - (courses were roughly £600 each when I did it)
M206 - Can't remember what it was called, but it was a gentle introduction into OO.
M325 - Sofware Engineering with Objects

Possibly a course on relational database design.

I found the OU materials excellent and definitely a solid foundation into OO programming and design patters.

3: Get Xampp installed on your local PC and experiment, experiment.

4: Learn something like Zend Framework / Cakewalk etc; to put in practice your OO learning.

5: Join SEO book community for a couple of months (I think its £200 a month). In my opinion, that would put you head and shoulders above the Mozzers in the SEO game.


Just my opinion on what I would do if starting out.

If you had the aptitude, you could do this in a couple of years. A solid foundation in OO design with RDBMS theory would enable you to design a scalable effective application. With basic design skills you could flesh out the skin for an application.

Once you had done the hard graft of designing, coding the app; you could contract out the visual aspects to pros.

 

[Alan]

oh dear, sounds like a massive commitment

I'm not trying to become a web developer/designer, I thought it would be good idea to learn about it so that I don't have to rely on anyone but myself. Oh well, I guess you can't know everything.

Yeh, the OP worked that out ages ago, in fact by the end of page 1, not worth doing unless it is your business / career.

 

[Amazin]

This OP went off the idea about learning web design after the first few posts.

I totally disagree with Swisaw, its not easy. The subject is ever evolving.

well, not just yet! but I was bit intimidated! I certainly under estimated amount of work involved. the good news is that I can use wordpress which is reasonably easy to use and the site I'm trying to build is not too complicated.

Its a membership based site where people register to become a member and a blog's page where I can write articles and eventually I will need to install payment options ect. I should be able to learn it myself right?

Like I said, I'm not trying to become a web developer/designer/geek, I just want to learn enough so I can build it myself. It shouldn't take years right?

of course, after the site is complete. There's the SEO

 

[pickaweb]

If you are looking to learn web design I would recommend checking out http://teamtreehouse.com/
All the best.

 

[Jetbusters]

I started off wanting to learn web design and whilst I know the basics and am comfortable editing HTML, I would never profess to being a web design expert.

The thing with web design is its a bit like learning a new language. Once you lve learned the basics, it's often enough to help you get by in a lot of situations, and for the more complex things, at least you can engage with a web development expert and communicate your requirements more effectively.

If you are a complete novice then I would recommend starting with absolute basics of a HTML page.

Visit the w3schools.com site and look under creating a basic HTML document

Once you've mastered the basics (should take less than an hour) then I'd recommend opening a few sites in Google Chrome and then right-clicking on the page and choosing "inspect element" which opens up a box showing the code behind the page you are viewing. As you click on specific parts of the page, Chrome wi highlight the associated code. You can even click on the code to alter it, and Chrome will show you what the page would've looked like had the coder inplemtented the code you'd just changed.

I find it really useful and it has really helped with my progression in terms of coding. For the really complex stuff I can then at least explain to someone else exactly what I'm trying to achieve.

 

[Sports Trophy Co]

I reckon the easiest way to learn web design is with someone who can already do it. Reading books is probably the hardest way. most colleges do evening classes in basic web design. Forget about css for the moment play with tables images links.

 

[zigojacko]

oh dear, sounds like a massive commitment

Without a doubt. Web design is constantly changing, as with anything in the digital industry. You need to be keeping up to speed with the latest news, webkits, technology, css progressions, html progressions etc etc in order to evolve with the industry. Failure to do so will result in you designing in out dated code and producing garbage like most "web designers".

I got a quote from a web development company recently who offered to do it for £750 (after discount) and £250 per month for SEO. I estimate it will probably cost me £2k on the whole thing so I do need to think about it carefully.

That's nothing, go to a real agency, that really know there beans and you'll be looking at much higher quotations because that's difference between rubbish and awesome.

 

[zigojacko]

of course, after the site is complete. There's the SEO

SEO should be a factor in the site build rather than after the site is complete (where possible of course).

 

[fisicx]

However you could spend a million and get awesome rubbish.

Forget about css for the moment play with tables images links.

Welcome to 1994

 

[lucab]

Hi Amazin,
It's not that hard you seem.There are many free web design tutorial available on the internet.For basic stuffs I recommend w3schools.

Luca

 

[Chris.Solve]

Hi Amazin. I was in a similar position to you when I was at uni, I wanted to earn a bit of pocket money doing affiliate marketing but didn't have a clue about web designing/developing/coding etc. After a lot of research I decided that a site builder was the best solution. I started using Webs, which was quite frankly rubbish but later discovered Moonfruit which I personally thought was brilliant. My site is still live today (3 years on) and still earning money. You don't need any design knowledge at all, it is free to begin with but you will have a domain name like xxxxxxxx.moonfruit.com. It is also great for SEO as well, it allows you to add your Meta Tags. I pay about £78 a year for my subscription and it works perfectly for me, so might be worth checking it out?

Alternatively an open source alternative to wordpress is Joomla. You might want to have a look at that.

 

[fisicx]

It is also great for SEO as well, it allows you to add your Meta Tags.

Which as Google tells you is pointless for SEO.

Moonfruit, webs, weebly, wix or any other site builder are very limited. You could get a lot more than for your £78 with a free CMS and cheap hosting - you would probably find you will earn a lot more than you do at the moment.

 

[zigojacko]

Which as Google tells you is pointless for SEO.

Don't use moonfruit, webs, weebly, wix or any other site builder.

I started replying with this earlier but didn't bother posting in the end. Lost the will to repeat this for about the 15th time in the last two weeks. Heh.

 

[zigojacko]

Alternatively an open source alternative to wordpress is Joomla. You might want to have a look at that.

As a sidenote to this, Joomla is far more complicated to get your head around that Wordpress for the average business owner looking to get a website up and running with minimal to no experience.

I wouldn't recommend diving into Joomla unless you've got quite a few hours to read usage documentation.

 

[stsoftltd]

Hey there
It's not something that you can learn in 2 months.. Even if companies guarantee that after their course you will be prepared, you will be not.
Would you learn speaking in 3 different languages in few months? - Answer is no.

It's worth to mention that Web Design & Web Development are two different things..
If you're creative with tones of ideas, you may want to become Web Designer, and start learning from home.

Few things that you will surely see on your learning adventure:
- Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3
- Typography
- Visual balance & Hierarchy
- Unity
- Human Perception
- Colour terminology (Colour schemes, colour wheel)
- Design for print

This isn't full list, just few examples that will give you an idea of what is a must.

If you're planning to be a developer (coding stuff) just like me.. This is much more complicated and hard. Takes ages to learn.

Here's few things you will learn as a web developer:
- HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3
- JavaScript (CoffeeScript), jQuery
- PHP / Or PHP framework like Codeigniter or Cake (This one is optional if you intend to use OOP)

- OOP (Object oriented programming) like Ruby on Rails *That's what I do*, C, C++, Python

The great thing is that in some cases learning new language will be easier as you have knowledge of coding in something different.

For example, I learned Ruby on Rails very very quickly as I learned Codeigniter before that, they both use MVC pattern.

Totally agree! Its not something that you`ll learn for a few months. It takes years to become a decent developer. And even after you do, you have to keep on learning because things changes fast in this business.
Cheers!

 

[adamo]

My best advice would be to start watching a few tutorial-type videos on YouTube, then gradually build up your knowledge.

Most of the videos are structured well and you can code alongside the video and follow the steps - this is how I learn best, by writing out the code alongside the video.

 

[Kevin007]

I would agree with peoples views here that HTML would in-fact need a lot of your time and attention. From a basic prospective if you want to get a general idea you can refer to videos on youtube they might be of great help. Now coming to SEO again that's a very vast field try learning the basic of SEO from Google's very own PDF, SEOMoz has a document as well that will give you an idea of the effort involved in SEO, its benefits and that would allow you to analyze the things you are getting for your money invested with a company. From a business point of view its always best to focus your attention on what you are good at, learning would definitely help you in gauging if you are getting vlaue for your money invested with a particular service.

Hope that helps

 

[theseomarky]

boostrap framework is meant to be easy.

 

[ryedale]

As a sidenote to this, Joomla is far more complicated to get your head around that Wordpress for the average business owner looking to get a website up and running with minimal to no experience.

I wouldn't recommend diving into Joomla unless you've got quite a few hours to read usage documentation.

Have to disagree on that with the later versions of Joomla (2.5 + and ideally v3)

We have clients ranging from pensioners in their 80's through to complete technophobes who are now managing to keep their sites updated and build them up without needing to keep coming back to us for changes and additions even after a minimal introductory training session.

I

 

[10032012]

I think its more difficult today than it was 10 years or so ago. Back then you had to grasp the fundamental basics and concepts... then you kept up to date with whats new and progressed. Now, there is a lot of things going on. Too much overlap of roles.

Most web designers these days would need to know HTML5/CSS3 and Javascript (and libraries such as jquery) and hosting basics and entry-level SEO as a bare minimum.

Of course a web developer (emphasis on coding over design), server administrator and SEO are unrelated.... back then, you would design the website and hand it over to someone else to do any coding elements, SEO, server tweaks... and for many it wasn't even their responsibility to debug their own website design!

So I think peoples demands have increased over the years for less money, whereas you can globally deploy a website through the cloud and create new instances when you reach peaks or growth, back then you clustered servers together... and now its more about one person designing your website, back then you had a team each with their specialist skills... someone doing the graphical design, someone doing the web authoring, someone doing the coding, someone doing the testing...

 

[ryedale]

I've always found the best way to learn any new element, be it the basics or something advanced is to try and use it in a real world scenario rather than just copying an example out from a study guide. When I first started out, I offered to build sites for free for local charities, sports clubs etc, not only did it give me an initial portfolio, it was a very fast track way of learning

 

[Feldon]

Only just come across this thread and for anyone considering learning web design i can recommend http://www.prowebdesigncourse.com/ by Ben Hunt, it is a video based course which can be done in approx 6 months and whilst it touches on HTML, CSS etc it has quite a bit on Wordpress but it is a lot more than that as it goes into great detail on SEO, content, copywriting, adwords and photoshop, etc. I am currently studying it myself as i wish to learn how to create a site for my existing business and am also hoping to set up a service targeting a niche area once i am confident in doing it. So for anyone who is interested in learning without getting to into too much coding to build a website for their own business or even set up as a web design / consultant then i can highly recommend this course. Ben Hunt is also the author of "Save the Pixel" and "Convert" which you get for free on the course or you can buy off Amazon for a reasonable price.