# Any self taught web designers?



## Life.Is.A.Game (Nov 5, 2010)

I'm thinking to look into web design some more, I think I might like it. I'd like to teach myself though, well there are free tutorials online, to give me a head start, I actually did start it once but I got distracted and didn't end up doing anything with it.

I want to know... is it possible to teach yourself to do web design without school? I know, everything is possible, but I want to hear some real life experiences, if any...

Thanks!


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Well, what exactly do you mean by web design?

HTML and CSS are rather trivial to pick up and almost anyone can appear to be competent in it (and believe that they are) but making clean, reliable, and compliant source that isn't a headache to work on is another matter entirely. You can have two sites be nearly identical visually but with totally different ways of doing the markup. Some people learn to make sites that _look_ good but structurally they are very sloppy. 

Anyway it is very possible to teach yourself, but be careful what sources you use to learn, as some of them are very dated or present bad habits that people don't know are bad habits.


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## SkyWave (Feb 12, 2012)

I think it's very possible to teach yourself. 

As a programmer, I was taught that a programmer's work is never finished. Technology, languages, optimizations, etc continues to improve as time goes on. I believe Web Design is similar. While you may become an experienced Web Designer, don't let that keep you from learning more. You might thank yourself later.


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## ljames (May 26, 2011)

I can't code currently, maybe someday, 
but I do know graphic design and 
theory very well. I highly suggest 
reading about design theory. Things 
like positive/negative space, 
legibility, readability, grid systems, 
color, and more will help you to
develop a successful website
after you've learned to code it.

Feel free to ask me any questions
if you're interested in this.


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## kagemitsu (May 15, 2011)

Yup, it's possible to be a self taught web designer. I've been one myself for a while, doing some freelance work. Now that project is on-hold because I'm too busy with university, but once I get my degree, I'm gonna get back to it.

If you wanna be a web _designer_, having a background in art school definitely helps, not for the web per se, but for understanding the basic principles of design, color, typography and so on. On the other hand, if you wanna be a web _developer_, having a background in programming definitely helps, but it's not mandatory: the programming languages you'll be using to develop for the web are rather easy to pick up and learn. If you wanna be both, then I hope you're a patient, fast learning girl. 

Where should you learn this stuff? Definitely not in books, in my opinion. The Web moves too fast for books to be up to date, as new trends, new techniques, new code tricks come out every day. I'm gonna list a few resources you might find useful:

W3Schools is the best place to learn web developing, imo. The lessons are easy, quick, full of examples, and they're made by the official consortium that sets the standard for the web. 

Smashing Magazine is an awesome resource for every designer and developer. Besides their own articles, they act as an aggregator of the best websites about web designing on the web. Tons of inspiration, tons of tutorials.

A DIY Web Design Education is an article on the Noupe blog. Some links are outdated, but it is a very informative article about the skills you need to know to be successful in the field.

Michael Locke's Youtube Channel is the channel where the owner of a popular web design studio regularly releases video tutorials and thoughts about the web design world. You should definitely check it out.

Besides reading, you need to do tons of practice. Like, a lot. A real lot. Design even if you don't have real clients, make fake websites that work as an example of your work, never throw away whatever you do and build a portfolio asap.

Good luck to you!


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## jd_ (Feb 5, 2011)

sprinkles said:


> Well, what exactly do you mean by web design?
> 
> HTML and CSS are rather trivial to pick up and almost anyone can appear to be competent in it (and believe that they are) but making clean, reliable, and compliant source that isn't a headache to work on is another matter entirely. You can have two sites be nearly identical visually but with totally different ways of doing the markup. Some people learn to make sites that _look_ good but structurally they are very sloppy.
> 
> Anyway it is very possible to teach yourself, but be careful what sources you use to learn, as some of them are very dated or present bad habits that people don't know are bad habits.


Why is that a problem unless you are working in a corporate environment or with a team of developers? 
I used to agree with you and wanted "Clean code"... but "clean code" and writing things "from scratch" got old the older I got. Sometimes you just want what works and is efficient. Time is money really. Clearly things need to be a base level of organization, but I've met far too many people that sit on projects and are far too anal about it and are constantly trying to re-invent the wheel. That might gain you credit by a cs professor judging for semantics and syntax but it helps you little in the real world when you are juggling several websites at a time. This is especially the case as most clients don't give a FLIP about what the code looks like, but they are often picky about something being in a "certain place". I've had to hack together some ugly code into otherwise cleanly designed sites to get certain "features" to work.

My advice would be to avoid books and anything "theoretical" like the plague. You just need to download some source code, set up a LAMP/MAmp/WAMP environment, download some examples...open that up in firebug or something and start seeing what does what. I think web design is definitely something you just need to dive in to and learn as you go... B/C you will run into all kinds of unforeseen problems a book is never going to teach you.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

jd_ said:


> Why is that a problem unless you are working in a corporate environment or with a team of developers?
> I used to agree with you and wanted "Clean code"... but "clean code" and writing things "from scratch" got old the older I got. Sometimes you just want what works and is efficient. Time is money really. Clearly things need to be a base level of organization, but I've met far too many people that sit on projects and are far too anal about it and are constantly trying to re-invent the wheel. That might gain you credit by a cs professor judging for semantics and syntax but it helps you little in the real world when you are juggling several websites at a time. This is especially the case as most clients don't give a FLIP about what the code looks like, but they are often picky about something being in a "certain place". I've had to hack together some ugly code into otherwise cleanly designed sites to get certain "features" to work.
> 
> My advice would be to avoid books and anything "theoretical" like the plague. You just need to download some source code, set up a LAMP/MAmp/WAMP environment, download some examples...open that up in firebug or something and start seeing what does what. I think web design is definitely something you just need to dive in to and learn as you go... B/C you will run into all kinds of unforeseen problems a book is never going to teach you.


Well stuff I'm talking about are just things like making good use of CSS and closing tags well, that's all. 

It doesn't have to be super special or perfect, but having good styles for example can turn headache code of 100 lines with most of it being repeated tags into nice and easy to edit code of 20 lines that you can whip out in a few minutes.


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## PWarren (Apr 19, 2011)

Yep, I started by picking up html and css over a week, using "CSS: The Hidden Manual" and redesigning some bad sites. Then I found w3schools and began using it as an entry point into every topic: javascript, php, jquery, xml, mysql, ajax. Whenever I ran into a problem I'd google it into oblivion. Over a brief time I became somewhat comfortable with each area, enough at least to pick up concepts as I needed to. Now I'm starting to do freelance rebuilding real sites, using each one as a stepping stone to learn more about specific subjects. I'm hoping to learn faster than the projects increase in complexity. Practice is definitely all you need. If you can get a domain to play around on, that would be the perfect place to start. 

Go for it : )


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