Anyone can learn how to throw a website together in about 4 weeks, but it is mastering all of the little things that takes time. There are really simple things that need to be learnt about how to be able to create good websites. And then we get onto cross browser compat, programming, db driven sites, hosting, domains, updates, viruses, hacking etc etc the list is endless.

Using programs such as Dreamweaver really speeds up the process of the design work, but it is vital to understand how the underlying HTML works. The advice so far is spot on - get the necessary software, books etc then play, and play some more and experiment, and then read some more. you will end up eating, sleeping and breathing the internet and web design.

Thats what I started doing 4 years ago, and after moving up through various blue chips, reading some more, training more, and playing more I am now running my own web design company. But it has been hard graft and taken a long time, and continues to be very hard. Simply keeping up with the technology and software is a task in itself.

You have half of the battle done already as you are a GD.

I started my web design career 4 years back, when i read an article on howstuffworks.com, and was instantly hooked. Since then I have learnt every package, language, and little aspect of web design possible. Silly little things you NEED to know like placing non breaking spaces in empty table cells just for Netscape users, image optimising, table spacing, iframes, framesets, html, table size, javascript. etc etc.

My advice is start learning and absorbing everything, use your graphics skills and work hard at it. you will get there. For now try these resources:

Flashkit
Webmonkey
Cre@te
Howstuffworks
DBM
Phong
Internet.com
DT

And have a look at my website - Kreature Design

DW

[Edited by Dream Weaver - 5/2/2002 5:46:51 PM]

 

Call me a cheat but I bought some software called web studio. Cost me a fiver and all you do is drag and drop stuff, including links email etc. Looks quite good to me and I've built it without knowing any html at all!

Steve
htp://freespace.virgin.net/stephen_m.crosby

edited to ad url so you can have a look

[Edited by stephen30 - 5/2/2002 6:43:07 PM]

 

hi ya lads'n'lassies... im a graphic designer by trade, but have a lucrative nixer waiting in the wings to create a website,
i have acces to photoshop, illustrator & image ready, is it feasible to create a website with this software? if so how would i learn FAST? layout etc is no prob, theres another guy doing coding etc.. so how do i learn?

Cheers

 

my tip is to play around learning html..

get a good book (e.g. an o'reilly one) about html and do basic pages ...

then to do actual sites use dreamweaver or frontpage.

thereby you get to "know" what the html code means (its quite easy really). But to speed things up use dreamweaver and look at the code it generates, or look at other people's sites.

if you don't want to know about html then just use dreamweaver, and learn from your mistakes...

 

thx for the info snowcrash, is o'reilly the author or publisher, please excuse my ignorance

cheers

 

Sorry fiver - can't resist

Being able to spell helps

 

LOL@PTMW tell me about it!!

Cheers lads thx for the great response, mucho appreciated

 

Stick to the day job.

 

http://www.oreilly.com/

book you might want to check out it:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/html4/