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  1. #1
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    Jul 2002
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    st louis, mo
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    Lightbulb For someone interested in becoming an Advanced Web Designer

    For someone interested in becoming an Advanced Web Designer
    I'm interested in becoming a web designer. right now I'm in college yet only a sophmore which means I'm still taking me elective courses right now. I wanted to know what kind of web design programs and languages should I learn to at least get a feel for what I'm about to get into. I've made web pages before but only in HTML. I'm wanting to do something more advanced with programs like Shockwave, the Adobe Line, as well as other Macromedia products. I've also heard of Cold Fusion but don't know that much information on it.

    I would like to know what other people think and would recommend to help learn these programs. I registered a domain name and parked it yesterday and would eventually like to get it running. Last but not least I did see the Web Hosting area about the different companies. What company and plans would you recommend for type of page I'm interested in putting up. My main concern is size, speed, good customer service, and compataibility of the programs I'm going to be using. I'm looking for a monthly fee of around $25. My domain is registered with GoDaddy.com. I'm debating to put up the site with them are still shop around. Any suggestions are more than welcomed. Thank you

    msjazz79
    http://www.geocities.com/msjazz79

  2. #2
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    UK
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    I would reccomend spending 6 months - 1 year working in photoshop to really learn the ins and outs of it. Combine this knowledge with some experience in illustrator 10 and golive/dreamweaver and you should be pretty sufficiant...

    for hosting i would reccomend www.alwayswebhosting.com ...cheap, fast and very good support, and 60GB of bandwidth per month on all plans! from $11.95/month. These guys shouldn't shut down soon because they been running with LOWER prices for a year or 2...
    Gone.

  3. #3
    I agree photoshop will be your main tool for doing layouts and stuff for websites and of course the all important photo manipulations and mast headers and such.

    definietly illustrator for creating logos, icons and general graphics. it's fine to do that stuff in photoshop (i do), but illustrator gives you a great ability to scale objects easily withou distorting them at all (since it's vector base). you'll understand when you make a logo and have to create severl different sizes.

    and as far as putting it together, i would have to say dreamweaver. not golive. just to me, dreamweaver is more powerful, expandable, and I would say the defacto standard for web editors. but also have a typing to editor too like homesite. sometimes you just have to hand code stuff to get real detailed stuff right. wysiwigs can only do so much.

    if your looking to be advanced. start using CSS right from the start and XHTML. Also, a bit of programming knowledge goes a long way (php, javascript, asp, vb script). Gives you a wide base to do stuff from. Note, I do not necesarily mean you have to be a programmer, just have a fundemental understanding of it so when you see code you know what it's doing. Great for customizing and using all those free prebuilt scripts on the web, for adding more pizaaz to that website.

    hope that helps

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
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    30
    I would recommend learning in 2 parts:

    1. Client side scripting
    2. Server side scripting

    Learn client side scripting such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS first, and when you're comfortable with those languages, move to server side programming languages such as Perl, PHP, ColdFusion, etc.

    While you're learning 1 and 2, take courses in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and 3D illustrations. As far as Macromedia products are concerned, if you're comfortable with HTML, Dreamweaver will be very easy to pick up. I wouldn't chose ShockWave as a priority, learn Flash first. There's more demand for Flash.

    $25.00 is a good amount to spend, but you may not need to. A good hosting company that I would recommend is Ventures Online

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
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    564
    I'd reccomend you learn PHP for serverside as its very easy to learn once you understand the php manual at php.net

  6. #6
    While your mastering all those concepts. You need to learn how to use them and integrate them together. I notice a lot of college graduates come out of college thinking they are the top best but when I see them perform I bout throw up all over the computers. Look at tons of well designed sites so you don't end up having a site looking like this:

    http://www.whizbangwebhosting.com/ (no offense to whizbangwebhosting) heh

    But here I have listed you a few sites that have helped me have my creativity to design.

    http://www.2advanced.com
    http://www.ceonex.com
    http://www.siebel.com
    http://www.pixelbrick.com
    http://www.designisdead.com
    http://www.whoswe.com
    http://www.estudio.com
    http://www.oringe.com
    http://www.cj.com
    http://www.audi.com
    http://www.mediatemple.net
    http://www.mtv.com

    Those are some of the webs top sites to get you started. You may not design like that your first try but you'll work towards it and soon you'll have those skills. Make sure you view those sites in detail, look at the text, text sizes, headlines, colors, dividers, images, backgrounds, gradients, fades, icons, navigation, and other things. Another thing, this is how the eye travels when you go to a web site:

    http://www.overskilled.com/eyemovement.gif

    Thats the way a eye will travel when it first sees a website or paper. So you will want to have a pretty exciting path along the first trip the eye will take across your website. Well, if you need any more help feel free to contact me on aim or email, info@overskilled.com Gizmo7779

    Good Luck!
    Last edited by OverSkilled; 07-27-2002 at 07:19 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    st louis, mo
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    Thank you so much for your feedback It's alot to absorb but I'm takin it all in. Please leave me more information if any other suggestions come up. I'll start look into classes tutorials onthe diff. programs ASAP Thank you again

  8. #8

    at least 3 to 4 months to master web designing skills

    If you want to master web design skills, I would highly recommend you to break the course into 3 sections:-

    1) Web Management
    Use Microsoft Frontpage to create and manage your website. It is one of the easiest software to use. Take notice, this software is an excellent web management software. You can also use this software to create the design that you want to include into your website. Although there are many other great web design software, I suggest that you start with Microsoft FrontPage

    2) Web Graphics Creation
    You need to learn some skills to create graphics for your website. A balance of graphics, CSS and HTML can produce an artistic and professional looking site.
    I recommend that you learn to use Adobe Photoshop. You can ignore all other of Adobe's products other that Photoshop until you have some intermediate skills on it. It takes at least 2 months learn this. Once you have mastered this, you can easily learn to slice images and create beautiful garphic layers to enhance your site

    3) Web Design and HTML
    It still comes back to Frontpage. If you not sure of how some of the codes works, simply design the website just like you are using your usual Microsoft Word. If you want to know how it is produce, click on the "source code" to view the source.
    Learn how to create and submit forms. Learn how to use CSS and learn how to break site layout using tables

    ---------------------------------
    4) Programming.
    If you have time, and if you wish to learn about web development, you can try learning .asp or .php.
    The easiest and fastest way to develop dynamic programs on the web is to use .asp scripts or .php
    If you are using Windows, consider .asp, although .php still works on both platform, Windows and Unix, but .asp is preinstalled with Windows Nt and Professional.

    If you are using Unix server, consider learning PHP.

    Good luck. Keep me updated with yr progress.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
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    315
    I have a few more questions to add to this post. Do professional web designers use Microsoft Frontpage? Or do they just use notepad or some other program? Is Adobe Photoshop a whole lot more different than Paint Shop Pro?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    Australia Sydney
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    437
    Microsoft Frontpage LOL

    No I dont belive you would see a profesional using it.
    HostHeadQuarters.com
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  11. #11
    I started out with frontpage and found out that it wasn't powerful. It messed up a lot with tables, text, and other things. Then I went to notepad for about a year. That worked very well but was very time consuming. It enhanced my HTML skills majorly. Then I went to Dreamweaver and that worked out very well. I love using it, it never gets the code wrong and has a lot of extra goodies. I'v used Paint Shop Pro and I didn't like it all that much. I really like Adobe Photoshop the best out of all programs I have tried. You may want to use Macromedia FreeHand for creating logos and icons.

  12. #12
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    Jul 2002
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    I've never used front page, I started out and prefer notepad. I don't know, there's just something about Front Page that irks me, but I'm required to use it for my class next year.

  13. #13
    Just a comment. I don't want to sidetrack this thread. Cool logos and flashy graphics and pictures are great but they shouldn't get in the way of the main purpose of a website. I'm not a web designer. I think you'll find that a lot of internet companies that wasted their time and money on real slick stylish sites are out of business while the simple and clean sites like EBay, Yahoo, Amazon and Dell are still going strong.

    Learn the fancy photoshop skills and stuff but dont get too caught up in it. I've got a 1.5mb cable connection and the Audi.com site takes about 30 seconds to load. Then the AudiUSA site takes more time to load. The sites I listed take 5 seconds or less to load. As a consumer comparing brands and models of cars, computers or even webhosts I wouldn't want to sit there waiting for the site to load everytime I wanted to check some features.

    You just need to learn to balance design with functionality.

  14. #14
    oh please do not use Frontpage for professional level web design. it's something maybe a high school student would use. it throws in all sorts of unecessary code and crap.


    also, i know some people like to use notepad, but i see no real reason too? i realize it give you complete control but it's also a waste of time. Adds 3 times more time to make a webpage.

    think of it as programming in Assembly language. sure it can be done, but there are better ways at achieving the end goal.

    something like dreamweaver let's u view the actual html code and edit it as the same time. so no, i don't think notepad is worth it.

  15. #15
    Frontpage...hah...um...no.

    I personally just use notepad (or wordpad if file size is too big for notepad)...but Dreamweaver by Macromedia is the standard.
    Lime Drop Marketing!
    Web Design | Graphic Design | Logo Design
    http://www.limedrop.ca

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    TO, Ontario, Canada
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    Personally I wouldn't recommend people to start a career as a website designer. Why? Because you can just go buy a pre-made site template for $50. Yes there will always be a demand for "custom" sites but I think the market is becoming over saturated.

    What to do instead?
    Go learn advanced Flash and actionscripting, database design and a server side languages such as php or asp.

    Any 7 year old kid can make an HTML site... and any computer newbie can open Frontpage and make a site but they can't do advanced flash and program a site to be interactive now can they?

  17. #17
    I'd just like to echon the comments made above. Seriously, web designing isn't as easy as people think it is (knocking up frontpage, putting some tables in). Obviously who are we to say what you should or shouldn't do, but be prepared for the long haul, you're going to have to learn a lot, I would not suggest taking electives in these subjects as I've always had an inherent dislike for college computer courses, if you're interested, just buy a book and fiddle fiddle and fiddle some more, you'll learn a lot more. Besides, if the web designer thing doesn't work out you have something to fall back on, "hope for the best, plan for the worst after all."

    As for what to learn, html obviously (you'll be suprised how many 'web designers' out there don't have a good html foundation which is disgraceful really, a seven year old could pick it up), I love Dreamweaver as an editor but this is just a personal choice, I've heard good things about GoLive as well, and I'd learn a bit of fireworks since dreamweaver and fireworks intergrate together brilliantly and you get a thirty day free trial. And at the risk of sounding all zen and bhuddist like about this, learn about usability, learn about how the eye works, learn about where to put logo's and where not to, there is a certain art to web site designing, being a programming geek like ehem... some people people here might happen to know is not enough =P!!!

    Sites must have panache, grab attention, be simple to use and be quick to download, now there's a holy grail =).

  18. #18
    Just thought I'd share some funny tips from a web design tutorial at Webmonkey

    1) People hate to wait.
    2) People hate to scroll.
    3) People hate to read.
    4) People would rather scroll than wait.
    5) People would rather wait than read.
    6) People are not necessarily rational or consistent, but sometimes they are.

    makes me laugh everytime.

  19. #19

    Wink

    Originally posted by TowerHost
    Personally I wouldn't recommend people to start a career as a website designer. Why? Because you can just go buy a pre-made site template for $50. Yes there will always be a demand for "custom" sites but I think the market is becoming over saturated.

    What to do instead?
    Go learn advanced Flash and actionscripting, database design and a server side languages such as php or asp.

    Any 7 year old kid can make an HTML site... and any computer newbie can open Frontpage and make a site but they can't do advanced flash and program a site to be interactive now can they?
    While a 7 year old could make a HTML site, and any newbie can open FrontPage, and you can buy cheap templates online. You are really missing the whole point to professional web design.

    First and formost, just becuase anyone could learn how to do it doesn't mean they would actually produce sites that a professional business would want to use as their online presence. And as for templates, many companies want their own identity, not one that is being used by countless others. I don't have anything against templates (or 7 years old ), but there are millions of businesses world wide that want to get a professional custom web site designed. And they want it designed by someone who actually has talent, not someone who jsut knows how to use the programs.

    The other critical factor in all this is time. Time is money. Many business will outsource the design of their site to a professional designer becuase why take time away from their own core business function to design a web site when it would be more efficient to pay someone to do it. Sure they could get an employee to do it, but that employee has a job function - who is going to cover their duties while they design a web site? Even for companies with an IT department - just because the guys/gals in the IT department are talented computer professionals doesn't mean they can design GOOD web sites.

    I for one have no problem finding clients who are happy to pay me thousands of dollars to design web sites for them. I think it is a very viable career choice.

    Of note is that fact that the same things were being said 10 years ago with desktop publishing. But the sky did not fall in. Businesses still pay good money to have professionals produce things like annual reports, etc., that they could really do for themselves if they had a copy of Quark. Why? Well because a business wouldn't dream of sending it's share holders an annual report that Jim from accounting did on Saturday afternoon on his PC. This is not them image they wish to project.
    Last edited by Vilandra; 08-03-2002 at 09:33 AM.

  20. #20

    Re: For someone interested in becoming an Advanced Web Designer

    Originally posted by msjazz79
    I wanted to know what kind of web design programs and languages should I learn to at least get a feel for what I'm about to get into. I've made web pages before but only in HTML. I'm wanting to do something more advanced with programs like Shockwave, the Adobe Line, as well as other Macromedia products. I've also heard of Cold Fusion but don't know that much information on it.

    What you NEED to know:

    - How to HAND CODE HTML (sure you will be using Dreamweaver, but you should still be able to construct any page by hand that you could make in dreamweaver)

    - How to use Macromedia DREAMWEAVER MX. I say MX becuase it combines the orginal Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver ULtraDev.

    - How to use Macromedia FIREWORKS. Yes Photoshop is better at many things but not at constructing web site layouts. Use Photoshop to make individual graphics/buttons if you want (in the same way you would use Illustrator to do logos) - pull it all together in Fireworks. You can then export from Fireworks to Dreamweaver.

    - FLASH and ACTIONSCRIPT. If you don't know Flash and ActionScript then your web career won't get past about 2005. This is the future people ... don't get left behind!

    - USABILITY, USABILITY, USABILITY

    - CSS (font tags and a whole lot more old HTML tags have gone the way of the dinosaurs, if you don't use cascading styles sheet your sites are not going to be compliant with the latest standards. Things like standards are going to become more and more important as time goes by as it will be a way to differentiate professionals. As with the flash comment, this is the future - don't get left behind)

    - JAVASCRIPT

    - XHTML

    - XML

    - PHP

    - mySQL

    Other pearls of wisdom :

    - Trying to know how to use all the programs, when many of them have the same fuctions, is futile. A jack of all trades is a master of non! Choose Dreamweaver and stick with it - don't try and learn GoLive too. Focus on Flash - it is designed for web use, forget Shockwave at least the moment - You'll have enough on your plate learning Flash.

    - Don't get confused about what it is you do. You're a web designer, not a graphic designer. The lines between the two are blurred, but there is still a difference.

    - Anyone who thinks that FrontPage is a professional web design tool is not a professional web designer.

    - Use books. O'Reilly's books are excellent as is New Rider's 'Magic' series.

    - Get certified. Macromedia now do certification in Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and others.
    Last edited by Vilandra; 08-03-2002 at 09:21 AM.

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