[Closed] Learning Web design

To be honest with you I wouldn't concentrate on any specific software. If you want to 'design' stuff then you need to know the fundamental principles of design. If you don't know the rules of layout and typography, then it doesn't matter what software you learn, you won't produce anything decent.

Start with the basics and then learn the individual packages as you go along

he hasn't worked withor recruited anyone who has useddreamweaver for years.

This is kind of bollox. Dreamweaver is a perfectly usable text editor with handy built in FTP. I hand code with the best of them and I use dreamweaver because it does the job and comes with Adobe CS. To not hire someone because they use dreamweaver is missing the point a bit and says more about said employer than it does the people that use it.

There's also a bit of a grey area, as Web design and learning to build websites are quite different and not exactly interchangeable terms.

Someone who can build a website isn't necessarily a web designer although they might well call themselves one.

And most courses that teach you how to build a website (listed as web design courses) will most likely teach you chuff all about actual design.

My advice would be to learn how to build a website using online resources. Then invest in some books or maybe do some actual design courses to apply design knowledge to building websites.

As above

Design is design, whether web, print or whatever

Build is very different

I design websites all day every day but barely know a line of code

But I DO understand the restraints of designing for web

To not hire someone because they use dreamweaver

I second what binners said, don't tie yourself into one package too closely - you should be able to code a website with pretty much any text editor / ftp client you get your hands on.
And design is a whole different thing to development, if you really do want to be creative, go for the design side of things!

if any course touts themselves as how to do web design using dreamweaver then I would be wary!

Firstly design is really look and feel. Generally people create mock up sites in photoshop, fireworks etc. This is the design.

Then someone (sometimes the same person, more often than not a different person) develops the site using a text editor, html, css, javascript. This is the web developer.

Then if complex it may go to another developer for content management integration or apps building.

I would personally get a few books and read loads online and just use any old free software.

Code is code, the application you type code into is irrelevant. At home I use Coda and work I use dreamweaver.

If you want some book recommendations, then css mastery by andy budd, begining css with web development Simon Collinson or Web Standards by Geoffery Zeldman would be a great starting block.

Wise words on here.
Learn about design and layout, any monkey can code/operate software. I know, I can code/operate software, can't do design/layout for toffee. I often do websites where I get my graphics design bod to sketch a few shapes and proportions and I can happily code it up. left to my own devices I'll make a functional usable website that looks wrong....

That being said you might get more value learing some programming languages and tricks, start with html and css, and then pick apache,python, perl, php, javascript and more..

I design websites all day every day but barely know a line of code

+1 😆

There is an easy way to cheat at websites by slicing up the image you make in photoshop then exporting as images and html, then putting it into dreamweaver to do the rollovers etc but I think that's frowned upon by most coders 😛 Works well enough for simple websites though and is a quick easy way to make a nice looking website.

binners can point you in the direction of some poorly designed websites though. Just get him to do it by email 🙂

Visual Web Developer Express with SQL Server Express coupled with a book from Wrox or Apress will do for learning if you want to learn development (I appreciate that PHP and MySql are good to have under your belt, though - I just prefer ASP.Net WebForms). jQuery and CSS will be a big help whichever route you choose.

No idea about design though - I just work to someone else's design, thank goodness!

Jquery is great - loving what it let's me design and still be standards compliant 🙂

Just done this and it works on iPhone too http://www.advocate-consulting.co.uk/