Hi I am new!

Hi all I am just joined, I was looking for some advice from fellow web designers.

I am a apsiring web desinger in the UK, Self taught in html, a little java and php, I use photoshop to design graphics and buttons.

http://www.aristocatrescue.co.uk/ - that is the last site I designed, just to give a idea of the current standard of my ability.

I was thinking of taking a home course, because I work full time.
Is that the right thing to do? I have searched around the net, not anything good really is said about them, being called "cowboys" and that. Just buy self teaching books and build up a protfilio. What would the best why to get in to this career?



Thanks alot for reading this in advance. (Sorry if posted this in the wrong place)

Adrianna

Hi, welcome.

I think you are on the right track with building a portfolio. Most computer skills can be proven by a portfolio without a minute of schooling. Just web research these days and you can learn all you need to know (that doesn't work for brain surgery ) Show off a great portfolio and you'll get jobs.

But now a caveat to that: I'm talking about coding, not design and style. Graphic artists are well trained specialiists, some with many years of schooling. It is schooling that I am sorely missing as I am the first to admit my designs suck. But give me any design and I can code it in CSS/HTML based on self-learning.

Unfortunately I cannot see your site right now as it is not loading (But I am currently in China and their internet is sometimes wonky)

I should caveat again: my perspective is via self-employment gigs, not about getting a full time job working in a cubicle. If you are looking for a full time job, then learn the tools of the trade in your area. Maybe it is Dreamweaver, maybe something else...I code by hand and I think lots of self-employed types do as well.

But I go on too much.
Good luck in your endeavor.

Hi Adrianna,

I am also self taught in all of webdesign but i do come from an art background so that kind of helps.

I started off buying the basic books from WHSmiths :P like HTML CSS.

On the site you posted there was no layout design, this is like the look of the site. A layout is how you would like the site to look in your head, the look of the site depends on what the content is going to be, but there are general rules that business sites should be clean cut etc. And the norm is to stick to around 3 main colours with varying shades. Heres an example of one that im working on for a client at the moment



Theres a few good image programs out there, i personally use Fireworks and Photoshop either can do top notch layouts. The key to being good is to mess around with them :P

If you need some step by step advice in how to make layouts feel free to email me: dave@sypher-design.co.uk im happy to help!

Thanks for the advice, It was very useful! I shall have to bug in the future once I have developed a bit more