Before starting a career as a designer, almost every beginner has a lot of questions that have no answers due to lack of experience. What knowledge should a web designer have, what programs should he master, how much time should he devote to training, how to acquire professional skills, where and how to look for a customer, how to submit finished work - I tried to answer these and some other pressing questions in this article.

1. What knowledge does a web designer need?
In general, to begin with, I would advise reading some sensible book. To begin with, you just need to scroll through it diagonally, stopping at those points that are clear. At the initial stage, it is important to understand “what is on which shelf”, what is the general theoretical structure. And then gradually turn to her for more detailed explanations on a specific issue with a deeper elaboration and understanding of the material. That is, in essence, it should be a working textbook that should always be at hand.

In particular, basic knowledge of web design is required. Special attention should be paid to such a concept as a “website”, it and the principles of existence on the Internet. By the way, on my website you will find a lot of theoretical material that will help you gain the necessary initial knowledge.

Another area you need to be aware of is . Even if you are not going to do the layout yourself, you still need to understand how the site is laid out. This will help you avoid making mistakes at the creation stage. Basic programming is optional. And it would also be good to understand, since it is on this platform that most sites operate.

2. What programs need to be mastered
In this matter I adhere to minimalism. I sincerely believe that in order to make a normal design, it is enough to know . However, this program should not be mastered at the beginner level. And therefore you will have to spend time studying it. All other programs are optional. For layout, a standard Notepad is sufficient.

3. How much time to devote to studying
In general, in this matter everything is very individual. For me it was in two stages. First, I learned to use Photoshop and I began to get advanced ones. In terms of time, it took, well, maybe three or four months. After that, the thought appeared that that’s it, now I’m a designer and I can make websites. I tried to design a website and it didn’t work out at all. Everything looked very mediocre and clumsy.

Then I gave up trying to do anything and just started studying the work of other designers. I literally looked with a magnifying glass at how the sites I liked were made, taking them apart piece by piece. Along the way, I continued to study through the tutorials, but without really straining myself. And after a month of looking at it, I really had a qualitative leap and I somehow easily made two simple websites, one of which was immediately bought.

So, we can say that after about 4-5 months of training, fairly strong design skills and an adequate understanding of the design process itself appear. But of course, provided that during this entire time you really engage in self-education, train, study theory, and try.

4. How best to acquire practical skills
I definitely recommend starting with copying the sites you like. But only as a training! Don't reinvent the wheel. Just try to do the same. I assure you, it will turn out completely differently, not like the original. And the next step, I would advise you to take some high-quality free theme or template and thoroughly understand the code. In order to try to control design elements. This parsed code can then be used as a basis for future designs.

5. What you need to take care of in advance
You should definitely take care of two things. Firstly, you should definitely get an online account to accept funds for payment for your services. Now this is not a problem - there are a lot of online wallets and accounts. And secondly, you should definitely place your . Well, accordingly. If not finished works, do the work for yourself and put it in your portfolio.

6. How to decide on prices
My advice to you is to be sure to decide on your prices before communicating with customers. There is nothing worse when a customer knocks on your door, and you are forced to answer something vague when asked how much it costs. Better yet, have a page with prices for your various services. Convenient for both you and the customer. And also, never inflate your prices, at least at first. While you are a beginner, it is better for the price to be ten percent lower than similar generally accepted prices.

7. How to look for a customer
To begin with, you should not neglect the traditional methods of customer search. You can register in all sorts of popular freelance exchanges and create your own page there with a description of services and examples of work. In principle, there is a chance that you will find a customer there. Although, it seems to me that we can wait a long time. Because they turn to top freelancers first. But I won’t say so.

But there is, it seems to me, more effective ways. Pay attention to SEO forums. They are mobile guys and they always need some kind of landing pages, slogs or PPS feeds. Therefore, they are quite interested in design services. Almost every major forum has a “Design” section. Study this section carefully, see what works are sold there and at what prices. Make something similar and put it up for sale there. I did just that at the time.

In principle, if you work hard and show imagination, then looking for a customer is not so difficult. For example, at one time I had the idea of ​​​​doing redesigns of working websites on the Internet that had a completely useless design. And then offer the owners to buy new design, if you like it, of course. The main thing is not to sit and wait for a line of customers to line up for you. At first, you will have to work hard in the search yourself.

8. How to communicate with the customer
And finally, you have a potential customer who is interested in your services. At this stage, try to find out in as much detail as possible what the customer wants to see as a result. I always ask the customer to show sites on the Internet that he likes. And also ask about what he definitely would not like to see. And also, never underestimate the deadlines for completing an order, no matter how much you want to! It’s better to throw in a couple of days for insurance and hand over the work earlier than to irritate the customer by stretching out the deadline.

9. What is the order fulfillment mechanism?
My interaction with customers happened as follows. First, I receive technical specifications (TOR) from the customer. Then, over the course of some time (usually three days or more, depending on the complexity), I complete the work and provide the customer with a website layout in jpeg. Typically this includes a home page, a post page, and a sub page. Sometimes the main page is enough, but this must be agreed upon with the client in advance.

If the client has approved the layout, then I start layout. At this stage you can take an advance payment, but I usually don’t do this. I prefer that the work be paid upon delivery. If only because it really encourages you to complete the order. After the site is designed and tested, I give the client an archive of the finished site with installation instructions (if it is WordPress). After this, the client pays for the work performed.

Sometimes they ask whether you need to somehow insure yourself against being cheated out of money. In principle, no one is immune from this. Therefore, first, look at the history of your client’s existence on the Internet. What websites does he have, where does he live, what is his reputation, how accessible is he? If the client is dubious, then refuse and do not take risks. If you do get cheated out of money, try to take it easier. At least you only got the cost of one order, but now you know for sure that you will no longer work with this client.

10. How to keep yourself in good shape
Once you have the basic skills in creating designs, try to gradually expand your technical arsenal. Try to follow all the innovations in the web design industry and quickly implement new features into your designs. Nowadays there are a lot of manuals and tutorials, with the help of which it is very easy to master all the innovations. This, firstly, contributes to your professional growth, and secondly, it will make your designs modern and more competitive.

From the author: I convey my warm greetings to all readers of my blog. Are you looking for a dream profession that you can do while lying on a lounge chair by the ocean? In this article I will tell you about the basics of a web designer career. You will learn what skills are needed for this business, where to look for customers, how to set prices for your services, and so on. If you want to know where to start your journey as a web designer, then here are my 10 tips.

1. Basic knowledge

In the first stages, it is important to at least indirectly understand the basic things in the field of web design. Read several books in this area, subscribe to interesting newsletters on thematic sites, and, of course, check out the rest of the articles on my blog.

Ideally, you need to take a step-by-step video course on web design in order to radically change the level of knowledge in this area and several times increase the speed of further professional growth. After you have absorbed the basics of this topic, you can move on to studying specific issues.

Find information on the Internet about the details that worry you and work through them carefully. Constantly strive to gain new knowledge. Each new micro-feature will have a positive effect on subsequent work. Don't know where to start studying to become a web designer? In the early stages, pay attention to the principles and basics of this business (HTML5, CSS3, etc.), combining different elements and the famous “play with colors and fonts” that customers love so much.

2. Programs for mastering

Often people who don't know where to start learning web design jump into everything at once. Should not be doing that. Don't download every image editor you know exists. To create normal design work, at first one program will be enough - Photoshop. Constantly improve in this graphic editor, and you will be happy, golden piastres and a house in Saint-Tropez.

Photoshop is not an easy thing, and you will have to spend a decent amount of time learning it, however, we are not afraid of difficulties, are we? I hope you are still here at all, and did not run away after those two terrible words in parentheses from the previous paragraph

3. Approximate training time

The learning time it takes to become a web design master depends entirely on your persistence, drive and desire. I advise you not to overdo it with learning and not to force yourself to cram something, otherwise you will quickly get bored. Professional growth will only occur with a sincere spiritual passion for what you do.

To create something more or less suitable, it took me about 3-4 months of studying articles, books and video tutorials. You are lucky to have come to this blog, because here I provide information in a structured manner and answer questions in detail, the answers to which I received no faster than diamonds from the mountains to the gnomes.

Study new information, try, search again, try again, and in six months you will have developed good design skills that will ultimately bring you a good income.

4. Start of practice

Once we have learned where to start to become a web designer and how much time it will take, we can begin to practice. I recommend that as your first work, you try copying any sites that please your eye.

Strive from the very beginning to complete the task efficiently, albeit not too quickly. Increased speed and productivity will come over time, but releasing a second-rate product can become a habit that will be much more difficult to break.

5. Basic tools to start earning money

First, you should decide how you will receive money from customers. These can be personal meetings, payment for bank card, WebMoney, etc. Create your work wallets, accounts and write down their numbers somewhere on your phone or computer, so that you can then reset the data to the client at any time and not make him wait.

Also, one of the most important tools for attracting clients for a web designer is his portfolio. If you have not yet had orders, then perform at the peak of your capabilities test work for myself. Then place it in your portfolio and show it to clients until there are no other completed projects.

6. Formation of prices

Decide in advance who your the target audience, and what scale of projects you are going to carry out. If at the start you are going to take on everything in a row, then at least outline approximate prices in order to answer the client’s question about the cost of the order. To do this, go to competitors’ websites and study their price list.

7. Where can I get my first orders?

To get started, post ads on several popular freelance exchanges. They should be accompanied by a high-quality portfolio, prices and a story about your experience and capabilities. As a rule, after such a procedure, the first order will not take long to arrive. However, if the description is weak or the portfolio is crude, then more experienced freelancers who have already achieved a certain rating on the exchange will win.

I recommend simultaneously posting advertisements on free message boards and various forums dedicated to web design or related topics (SEO, marketing, etc.). Having your own website will generate additional trust among customers, so it will also not be superfluous.

8. Communication with clients

As soon as the first customer contacts you, do not panic and do not run to your neighbor for a hundred-gram glass. Calmly pick up the phone and listen to what the person wants. Find out what examples of work he likes and clarify the deadline for completing the task. Then take the order, if you can implement it, and go ahead and create.

I recommend writing down all the questions that the client asked on a piece of paper and thinking about sensible answers to them, since there is a 99.9% chance that during the first call you indistinctly scrambled through half of the information. This action will help form a database of phrases that you will use in subsequent communications with customers.

9. Order fulfillment

The work pattern of most designers looks approximately the same. First, the client gives technical specifications. Then, within the agreed time, the project is completed by the designer and the finished result is provided in the form of a layout jpeg format. If the customer approves the work, then layout begins.

Consider the payment system in advance (50% before 50%, after or partial/full prepayment). Here, decide for yourself, at your own peril and risk. If you don’t take an advance payment, be prepared for “tomorrow I’ll pay today, my wife will give birth, and I’ll go to Paris as a purse.”

10. Further development

After building basic web design skills and completing a few successful jobs, don't stagnate and gradually expand your technical arsenal. Learn new features and follow trends. Remember that your income should increase not from the number of completed orders, but from the increase in the scale of projects. It’s better to do one project a month, but for 500,000 rubles, than 5 orders of 100,000 each.

I hope you found today's article helpful. Subscribe to the blog, share the link to it with friends and leave comments. There will be more to come useful information, which you can put into practice.

And today I am writing something similar to her. Similar articles, but far from professions. The fact is that a web designer is a person who has every right not to understand code at all, although it is good for him to have at least a basic understanding of how a site is transferred from a mock-up to the real Internet.

How to become a web designer from scratch and what do you need for this?

By analogy with the previous article, I will first list what exactly you need to master this profession:

1. Learn to work in PhotoShop or any other program where you can work with layers. However, you don’t need to know PhotoShop inside and out. According to statistics, web designers use only 10-15% of the program's capabilities.
2. Know how to design a website. That is, before drawing a layout, you must draw up at least a rough drawing of the future project, this good practice among web designers, this is what the pros do, which means you should learn too.
3. Understand what types of website designs there are. For example, what is tech. design or flat design.
4. Be able to draw layouts with responsive design. This means that you draw how the site will change on different screen resolutions. Today it is almost a mandatory requirement because everyone wants to have a mobile-friendly website.
5. Understand the types of sites. Understand that something is suitable for a one-page website that is absolutely not suitable for an information portal.
6. Find and apply useful tools in your work. The designer must learn to use various support services that will make his work easier. For example, there is good services for website design, color selection, etc.

As you can see, you need to be able to do a lot of things, but mastering everything is not so difficult. Next I will share with you useful links and recommendations on how to learn and become a web designer in the shortest possible time.

Where to learn a profession

Geekbrains - These guys have a five-month training program where you'll learn web design completely from scratch and create your first mockups. Geekbrains This is a super educational platform, the quality of education here is at the highest level.

Netology is an alternative. In terms of coolness, I don’t even know who is better: Geekbrains or Netology? The fact is that both sites have proven themselves very positively; thousands of people have already studied there and do not regret it. Yes, both prices are not the lowest, but in return you get training from a pro. And you can only become a pro if a pro teaches you. The next web design educational program will start here on May 20th. Both companies actively help their students find jobs after they graduate.

Webformyself - Free web design lessons for those who want to try without investing money. Also on the company’s website there are a couple of very good paid courses for beginning designers.

Magisters.org/ - I finally found another site here, which, by the way, has a lot free lessons on web technologies. There is also a course on Photoshop and drawing your first website layout. Since the course is objectively better than others presented on the site, it is paid, but costs only 1,500 rubles. Compared to training in Netology, this is 10-12 times less, but you also get less, but the information is still of high quality and if you watch the lessons, you will actually be able to draw your own layout.

Well, this is where I’ll probably end this post, I’ve given the main links, all you have to do is learn the profession, improve your skills and start making money from web design. Of course, the profession is not suitable for every person, so I recommend that you first decide whether this is what you would like to do in your life.

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Web design training from scratch - step by step guide for beginners (ten stages)

Many young people want to connect their future profession with website development. Naturally, not everyone wants to be a programmer; some of them are quite happy with web design.

Learning this profession from scratch is not an easy task, because in addition to working skills, you need to be a creative person, at least understand a little code (know CSS and), be able to communicate with the customer in the same language, etc.

Before starting to familiarize yourself with the basics of the profession, A number of questions arise, and you have to look for answers to them yourself. This is not easy to do due to the lack of experience; materials from the Internet do not always become useful, and sometimes, on the contrary, they only add new questions, and not everyone has an experienced friend.

Let's figure out where to start learning web design, what knowledge you will need for creativity, where and in what order to get it, how much time to devote to practical exercises, how to get your first experience and order...and with a lot of related questions.

Contents:

Step one - find out why you want to do this

On the one hand, this is a simple question, because most people want to do web design because of the good pay.

Website building is a very profitable business, but an experienced, and most importantly, intelligent developer is not always easy to find during the day.

Although there are many cases when a person wants to do it, and without knowledge of creating a website’s graphic engine, programming it is not easy.

And the third common reason why people become interested in web design is a craving for fine art.

AND this area can serve as an excellent way to put your talents into practice and derive financial benefits from it.

Important! For whatever purpose you get acquainted with web design, remember that both learning and work should be interesting, carried out with desire and bring pleasure, but not turn into a routine.

Due to the fact that a graphic artist is young profession, its exact definition does not yet exist, and many experts interpret the concept in their own way.

If earlier this person had to make the pages beautiful and pleasing to the eye, now it is necessary to have coding skills, understand marketing, and have an understanding of SEO promotion.

Without unique solutions, original ideas and an individual creative approach cannot solve the problem.

Website designer is a technical artist who works on the appearance and loading optimization of websites and web applications.

The tasks of these people include:

• working on the logical structure of the page– so that everything is clear to any novice user, he can find what he is looking for the first time, all important links should be visible;
• developing the most rational way to present content– the ability to interest the visitor, make him stay longer on the resource, leaf through the pages of the site;
• graphic design– where what elements will be placed, what the buttons and inscriptions will be like after a click, how interaction with the client is carried out, how and what will change during the visitor’s work, zoom changes, etc.

So we briefly found out why people want to do the graphic part of websites.

For future programmers, it is enough to familiarize yourself with the basics of visual design of web resources, at least superficially master graphic editors and template layout.

Those who are eager to devote many years of their life to creating an interface for Internet pages and obtaining the appropriate profession will first have to work hard, this article is dedicated to them.

Stage two - choose the direction of web design in which you want to try yourself

Internet technologies are developing rapidly, and along with them, the requirements for developers are increasing. At first, a beautiful aesthetic and bright page was the task of the artist.

Nowadays they distinguish as many as seven directions in their design, and these are just the main ones.

Hard

A type of page design as old as website building itself, requiring no effort, is perfect for beginners.

The bottom line is that all resource elements are placed in virtual table cells with fixed sizes, which are set by the designer.

Such a page will look absolutely the same on all devices, regardless of platform and screen size.

And this does not mean that such a resource is backward, because an experienced developer using strict design can create a beautifully designed website, and adjusting something in this case takes a matter of minutes.

Flexible

Also tabular design, but the width of the cells virtual table is not strictly specified, but depends on the screen size (aspect ratio, resolution). Objects will try to fill the entire space of the cell, changing its size. main feature such a decision– increasing the convenience of visual perception of data due to dynamically changing display parameters. On such pages there are no empty spaces free of content.

The challenges of this design are:

• there is no guarantee that on old “square” and huge widescreen displays the resource will display correctly, without stretching or shrinking the contents;
• Not all browsers work well with the processing of so-called flexible cells, and Internet browsers created on different engines do this each in their own way;
• it takes a lot of time to adjust and bring the project to perfection.

Combined

Combining the two previous methods: if the dimensions of the monitor (its aspect ratio) differ greatly from the parameters of the display that was used to create the site, a flexible design is used, otherwise both cells are used, depending on the availability of free space in them.

Text

Used when designing one-page resources and websites, which represent small businesses and companies in the global digital network. A feature of this design is the virtual absence of graphic elements, which has a positive effect on page loading speed. Playing with fonts, text colors, and good text placement will help make your project attractive.

Printing

Most in demand in the development of corporate and marketing resources, where emotional content comes first. The designer must be as creative as possible and creatively choose pixel images to design the page.

The disadvantage of print design is that it slows down the loading speed of the site. due to the presence, as a rule, of an abundant number of raster images, and even in high resolution.

Interface

Mostly experienced craftsmen turn to him. Their task is to satisfy all user requests, usually by minimizing program code, optimizing graphic elements and creating a convenient navigation system with a menu located at the top of the page. Such resources load quickly and are easy to work with both from a computer and from mobile devices

.

Dynamic

The most time-consuming, complex options for designing web pages. This type design lies in placement on the page dynamic content(animation, scripts, moving and changing elements, widescreen videos).

To implement your plans, you will have to work hard, and in order for the visitor to be satisfied and everything to work as intended, you need not only mastery of graphic editors, but also optimization skills; who wants to wait a long time for the appearance of some colorful three-dimensional button. But a well-designed resource always attracts with its beauty, originality and artistic solutions, regardless of the content.

Stage three - find out which web design programs are trending right now

Before downloading books on this or that graphic editor, you need to clearly understand the elements that are used in the graphic design of websites: shapes, colors, shapes, the play of light and shadow, lines - this basic elements, from which the entire composition is created.

Anyway, knowledge of cascading tables and hypertext markup is needed almost in the first place.

The designer will also need knowledge in the field of computer animation, popular animation, SEO, and maybe 3D modeling.

Attention! In addition to being difficult to learn, the application will also have to be purchased for full use, although for training purposes you can cheat by bypassing the program’s protection.

The latter is acquiring functionality that is in demand in dozens of areas, and the guys pay little attention to increasing the capabilities of web design.

Another thing is Sketch - designed for drawing graphical interfaces from scratch, does not have a single superfluous element, is easier to learn and easily outperforms Photoshop in key indicators.

Be sure to choose the most convenient one that supports syntax and highlighting: , Sublime, Axure RP.

Stage four - study useful books for beginner web designers

The good thing about the Internet is that it allows you to acquire books for free that ten years ago you would have had to purchase or look for like-minded people.

With the popularization of the web designer profession, the number of books on the topic has increased. Without a mentor or teacher, a book is the best way to gain knowledge.

Learning web design from scratch should start with the literature where basic concepts, theory and small practical tasks are given:

The main elements are:

Logo– usually occupies the central part of the page and distinguishes the resource from others;

Navigation elements– placed at the top of the page horizontally, less often – vertically and contains links to the main sections;

The main block where the content is located– occupies the main part of the screen, the text is always accompanied by drawings, tables, diagrams, animation, etc.

Modular grid

Before developing a project diagram, you need to understand the concept of a modular grid. It is a way of distributing information into columns; it is the framework of the future site.

Using a modular grid will greatly simplify further layout, take the time to get to know her.

Stage six – online trainings

• attending seminars and trainings;
• participation in online training (remotely).

Choose suitable activities based on your knowledge, experience and the direction in which you realize your creative potential. When taking courses, it is fascinating to consolidate theory into practice.

1 Web design lessons for beginners

More experienced developers owning English language, You should definitely familiarize yourself with the courses of your Western colleagues. As in the case of books, Western technical artists practice new technologies and solutions in the field before, secondly, the concept of work among foreign designers can be quite different, and it is always useful to adopt other people's experience. People get more benefit from courses than from dozens of books they read, as for practical skills.

Stage seven - find like-minded people

In your work life, it is important to communicate with people who do what you do.

This way you can not only make friends, but also share experience, knowledge, advice, provide assistance and evaluate projects one by one.

Healthy competition– the engine of progress, it allows you to develop, striving to do better than your friend, to bring something new to the project. And when learning web design from scratch, you definitely need to communicate with more experienced developers.

Stage eight – follow trends and tendencies

To be prepared for anything when working with a customer in an area where not a day goes by without new products, you need to constantly monitor new developments, solutions and technologies.

They change for the better, optimize resource loading, and increase the emotional appeal of the page.

The easiest way is to visit resources where experienced and not so experienced designers exhibit their work:

Stage nine - try your hand at a freelance exchange

You can work as a technical artist either on your own or for a company. It is better for beginner users to gain experience on freelance exchanges:

We work for cheap at first: we take inexpensive orders and work long and hard to complete them until the customer is satisfied.

Successful projects mean experience not only in design, but also in communicating with various clients, replenishing an as yet empty portfolio with work.

Pay more attention to filling out your profile and pricing the work.

Simple, but polished layouts can be sold, using similar projects for sale as a basis.

Important! Don’t hesitate to ask questions, find out which sites the customer likes best, so that you have something to focus on. You should not rush and do work with flaws or underestimate deadlines, and then make the customer wait and be nervous.

Stage ten – turn web design from a hobby into a profession

Website design is usually started by students and young people for whom this activity becomes a hobby.

They devote their weekends and evenings to what they love, and when they gain a little experience and their hobby brings in their first income, they seriously think about changing their occupation.

Just quit your job and go free for a living or replace your current place of work with a comfortable chair in the office at the computer many are afraid.

Here the lack of experience is reflected, and the chances of finding a customer or acquiring regular clients are low, and no one guarantees a stable income in the case of work and relevant forums.

Rice. 15 – Over time, web design should become a profession

And yet, if the activity of developing graphical interfaces for websites is attractive, it is definitely worth turning it into your main profession, and there is no need to delay it.

Over time, knowledge, experience, and regular orders will appear.

And if you want more stability, pay attention to working in an office among like-minded people with the opportunity to periodically work remotely.

The main thing is to strive to become better, constantly develop and enjoy what you do!

With the development of the commercial sphere, many new professions have appeared on the Internet. And until all these specialties begin to be taught at universities, the demand for good specialists is great.

Many people want to know where to start with web design, learn its basic topics and terminology. Some people go to courses to gain knowledge, others try to master a new profession on their own. Our article will help everyone who aspires to understand the basics of web design.

Internet Marketing

It cannot be said that web design began only after the development of Internet marketing, since this specialty has been popular for a long time. But it was precisely from the moment the need to improve the resource arose that this profession became more in demand.

Nowadays, Internet marketing depends on several specialists who help plan a website development strategy, develop it, fill it with content and promote it on the Internet.

Web designers play an important role in this difficult process. The success of promotion and the popularity of the resource depend on them. Knowing this, many people want to understand where to start learning web design.

Concept

If a student does not fully understand the tasks of his future specialty, then it will not be easy for him to work in this direction.

Web design is the classic manifestation of design in web development, the task of which is to design the user interfaces of websites and applications. What do specialists do:

• Designing the logical web structure of the resource.
• Development and implementation of convenient ways to present content (usability).
• Artistic design of the site.

Despite the fact that many web designers have nothing to do with art school or other creative studios, the ability to choose the right colors, shapes and elements is an integral part of their profession.

As mentioned earlier, no one will teach you this specialty in universities. Therefore, you can find both self-taught people and those who have completed courses and learned from professionals how to start web design.

Terminology

If we take a more in-depth look at the term “web design”, then this is graphic design, thanks to which you can develop and design objects of the Internet information environment. In addition to visual quality, the specialty also works on ease of use.

This explanation helps separate the term from the concept of “web programming,” giving the former a creative direction.

In addition to usability and aesthetics, web designers must pay attention to W3C standards, cross-platform, online marketing, optimization and advertising.

Although these are not the most important areas in learning web design, you still need to know about them, since they influence each other.

For example, the W3C is an organization that implements technology standards for the Internet. The specialist must monitor changes and work with them.

Cross-platform is the ability of a program to work on several platforms, that is, to be universal for any system.

Internet marketing also dictates its own rules for designing a resource, introducing elements that would influence a potential buyer.

Process

Where to start with web design? From studying what a specialist in this field should do. Unique design usually costs more because it is a colossal job that requires attention to every detail.

In this case, the customer creates a detailed technical specification, which is written down to the smallest detail. The designer is engaged in developing the concept of the resource, or, having received the requirements, follows them by creating a layout. Only after this the finished template is transferred to the web developer.

Sometimes a web designer offers his own solutions based on templates. This method speeds up the work and is much cheaper.

Some web designers do not work on specific projects, but on developing templates that can later be installed on any resource. There are a large number of sites with similar decisions. Even inexperienced users can purchase a template they like for $40-60 and install it on their future website.

Thus, the main task of a web designer is to create a layout. It can be represented by a picture that will show appearance resource pages. So that this picture can be finalized, it is made multi-layered. Depending on the needs of the customer, the layout may include not only a picture, but also photographs, complex collages, images, text layers and unique icons.

To ensure that the home page also stands out, the web designer creates a separate layout that can be modified or modified to suit the theme or special events.

Web design: learning from scratch

The best way To figure out where to start studying this specialty is to go to any course and read the first lesson, as a rule, is introductory. It says:

• Explain human perception of visual images.
• They teach color theory and the psychology of its perception.
• Talk about form in graphic design.
• Explain proportions and composition in web design.
• Learn to distinguish between vector and raster graphics.
• They talk about color models and modern trends.
• Briefly describe the main programs for working with computer graphics.

Typically several lessons are devoted to working with the program. Adobe Photoshop. In the first lesson, we study the application interface, toolbar, settings, creating a simple document, types and types of fonts.

Next, students are introduced to the concept user interface resource and its main elements. They study user interaction. After these lessons there are final lessons with a workshop on creating individual elements.

But that's not all where web design begins. The future specialist should get acquainted with one more program - Adobe Illustrator. As with Adobe Photoshop, in this case you get acquainted with the goals of the program, the workspace, the creation of documents, artboards, and the toolbar.

An important activity is to study the basics. It talks about the types and types of sites, page structure, interaction elements, tasks and functions, technical specifications for development, as well as design features. They also cover the topic of HTML and CSS.

Commercial sites

Where to start learning web design? As mentioned earlier, knowledge of internet marketing plays an important role. Therefore, commercial websites are also covered in courses in this specialty.

During the lessons he explains the specifics of usability for such sites, the development of components and the development of the structure of the main pages. Practice is important in learning web design. Even if you want to study this specialty on your own, it is important to conduct practical training periodically.

If you don’t know where to start self-teaching web design, look for technical specifications on the Internet. On other people's tasks you can practice creating home page commercial website, develop a catalog and product cards.

Landing page

This is another form of commercial website. It is called a landing page or landing page. The main task of this form of content display is to collect contact information of the target audience.

Such a page enhances the effectiveness of advertising and increases the audience. It contains information about a product or service.

The lesson on this topic begins with defining a landing page, structure and practical creation of the design. Next, it is important to conduct a workshop on landing page layout. From an internet marketing perspective, landing page must have many important details.

Analysis

The last classes are very important because they sum up the results. For web design, market analysis is important. A specialist needs to understand how to find clients and determine the competitive cost of services. In this lesson, a lot of time is devoted to analyzing prices on the market, as well as segmentation, forming the cost of work, competently drawing up a contract and rules for selling your services.

Self-study at home

In addition to courses, you can study your specialty at home. For example, there is distance learning in web design. Although this option is not the most popular. Online courses are not always of high quality and truly useful, but their cost is always very high. Sometimes the price is higher than for training courses.

Despite this, many decide to obtain such a specialty on their own. It is quite possible to do this. The only important thing is to be disciplined and find a truly useful training plan.

Not everyone immediately understood where to start with web design. But through trial and error, a home syllabus.

Color

Since web design is a type of graphic design, it is important to know the basics of this specialty. Therefore, training often begins with color theory. This is because the design experience is made up of many factors. Color is one of the most important.

It is difficult for a beginner to understand which colors go together. It is the basis of the theory of tones and halftones that will help when choosing a color scheme for website design.

Font

Where to start learning web design? Some experts believe that it is important for a beginner to know the basics of fonts. But this question is very difficult. Fonts are a whole science that is taught at the university at the faculty of journalism or typography.

It is better for a beginner to use already optimal solutions on combining fonts. After studying this topic in depth, you can experiment on your own.

Programs

We have already mentioned the programs that a web designer needs. You need to know everything about them, be able to use them and understand how they work. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are the main tools for working with raster and vector graphics. To this list you can add the Sketch program, which experts in this field talk about.

Special literature

Learning web design from scratch from books can also help you become familiar with the job. You won’t be satisfied with articles from the Internet alone, so it’s important to find useful literature on suitable topics. List of books that may be useful:

• Jeremy Keith "HTML5 for Web Designers."
• Dan Siderholm "CSS3 for Web Designers."
• Steve Krug "Web Design, or Don't Make Me Think."
• Tim Kedlec “Adaptive Design. We make websites for any device.”

There are a lot of similar books. Along with the curriculum, it is important to constantly read and gain additional knowledge.

conclusions

If you set out to learn web design on your own, then you will definitely succeed. At the first stage, it is important to carefully consider the curriculum and follow it.

It is very difficult to say exactly how long self-study can last. Each person perceives information differently, so for one topic or another he will need more or less time.

It will be much easier for those who already know how to use Photoshop, know Internet marketing and the basics of design. It will be easy for them to understand where to start learning web design. Self-training may take two to three months. But remember, it is important to devote at least a little time every day to studying this specialty.