Next To Learn: Web Design

[New Every Day]

I'm a stay-at-home dad who was a database programmer before deciding to stay home. When I decided to stay home 2 1/2 years ago, I started a business to do database programming, but that has been slow going, to say the least.

In the last couple of months, I've been contacted to do some websites. I have Macromedia (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, FlasH) and have learned all that. Now, I'm realizing that if I'm going to do more websites, then I need to learn some additional things. But I'm not sure what to do learn next. ASP? PHP? Or something I have never heard of.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks.
Ed

[rossio]

Hello!

Do you know CSS?

If not - I would really recommend getting a handle on this before you go too far down the php type of route!

I didn't learn CSS to begin with, sticking with good ol' html and tables but I REALLY regret this and am very passionately learning CSS now and am having to redo all of my site(s)!

Just my 2p worth

Ross

[pkarpiak]

If you are being contacted to do front-end web design (more focus on implementing the HTML/CSS and layout/design than backend technologies or CMS), then you should worry more about design theory first. Things like colour theory, typography, etc. are important topics to know. Make sure you grasp the concepts behind CSS and Web Standards/Accessibility too.

[Adam]

As far as back-end website design, I would recommend PHP long before ASP, simply for compatibility sakes, not to mention how easy it is to learn and how powerful it can be.

[Pat P.]

Visit Paul Boag site (www.boagworld.com). He is brit. designer that keeps a blog on web design, and he has addressed this issue on the past. He also has a regular podcast that you can listen to get you up to speed (they are on issue 58, so you have a lot to listen to, but it will pay the effort).

I agree that CSS and Web Standards are a must if you want to expand your business, and I would also suggest DOM Scripting.

You can also visit SitePoint : New Articles, Fresh Thinking for Web Developers and Designers for fresh ideas and A List Apart for more info and articles.

Good luck
Pat

[Erki]

CSS surely should be learned but IMO it's not too hard, especially if you use Dreamweaver.

Just make sure you don't use fonts with sharp edges on websites!

[kthdsn]

I hate dreamweaver, flash is a definite no go. Get a text editor open and code from scratch.

Xhtml, CSS and WCAG are all you need to begin with. That's what I started with. Then I moved on to PHP which I'm still learning.

You should know how to create accessible static sites before you move into dynamic ones though, simply because the static sites are easy to tweak, and once it all come naturally to you you can build your knowledge into your dynamic sites from the start.

[Erki]

Notepad of course is still the absolute bestest, but still, I have found DW to be good for modding CSS styles. No need to remember if it was center/centre/middle and so on. Much easier.

[kthdsn]

If you must use dreamweaver, do check the code that it outputs, some of it can be awful.

[Michael Chui]

I've found jEdit (especially with the FTP plugin) to be good, as well as Textpad and Notepad++.

I agree with everyone said learn PHP. The one that hasn't been mentioned is JSP. I'm not recommending it, though...

[Erki]

The code of ColdFusion(CFM) doesn't look very hard but hosting can be a bit hard to find I guess.

[andrew]

CF isn't meant to handle so much traffic, read:myspace.com. A horrible language to choose to run something that massive.

I don't know your graphics abilities, but you best be great at PS if you're designing sites. It depends what you're going to do, design or development what you should learn more of. Sounds like you're doing both, which is going to be a lot harder I'm afraid, but you'll be able to accept more jobs.

I'd love to know why you would think Flash is a no go. Flash devlopers are in much more demand than php, but the only crevet is you have to be REALLY good. You can get by with a mediocre php developer, but not with Flash/AS. It has a much more higher learning curve than php, and there's a lot more involved. So if you're looking for a quickie, then Flash is obviously not the way to go.

[haider]

Hello all,

I have to agree with Pat P's recommendation of visiting SitePoint. It's the best site I've seen on web design, and which covers all aspects of web development and design. They have books, videos, kits, articles, blogs, free newsletters and a a very active forum.

One of the kits they offer is called the Web Design Business kit, which gives great tips on how to run a web design business, as well as sample business documents to use!

They also promote best practices, which means you will get to learn the right way of web development (e.g. CSS, not inline styling). The benefits from their approach are enormous.

I personally use PHP, but would like to learn ASP in the future.

I suggest you check out SitePoint's Books, and read the sample chapters available to find out if you like the style of the books or not.

All the best,
Haider

[andrew]

Also a good place for the basics:

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials

[pkarpiak]

As for using or not using Dreamweaver, as long as you write your own code in the code editor without much assistance from Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG menus, you shouldn't have to worry about bad code. Its text editor by itself is very nice.