Thread: Website Design
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06-20-2011, 09:23 PM
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Matt Brighton is offline Matt Brighton
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Well, there's Web Design and then there's Web Development

Web Design is basically going through the design process and then creating a full dummy on photoshop of a website, and then there is web development which is coding and putting the 'brains' into the website so to speak.
Its great that your looking into learning this and theres usually huge discussions on the whole, can you be a designer AND a developer at a professional level as they are seen as 2 different things completely. Some designers spend years in design schools learning trends and techniques, the same goes for coders spending years studying all the languages. So to combine the two would take a lot of time to be a 'professional'

But on a personal level for your own online work then its probably a great way to save money. It depends how much effort you want to put into learning one or the other, or both.

The industry standard really is Dreamweaver from the adobe suite to code your sites, this software is quite expensive but worth while. The same goes for Photoshop which is again part of Adobe and you can get these two in a package for a few £100. Most if not all designers and developers use these two pieces of kit to develop and amazing site.

Most people learn through education for one of the other, as i mentioned, some designers go through 2 college years and 3 university years so they will have 5 years experience before they get out there. Same for developers. Others learn online or through experience, they start off small, earning a small amount and working for low budget clients and then they work their way up the chain, charging more for their work as the skill develops, and as they make friends / contacts who return for more work, those people are happy to pay a slightly higher price for a designer / developer who they know, love and trust. There's great resources online for example online videos for software at www.lynda.com. If you google the terms "photoshop tutorials" etc you'll find loads of paid and free tutorials. The best thing to do is follow the free ones to develop your skill.

The problem is - you can learn software inside out, but its useless if you don't have that natural ability to make things look good if your a designer, or to be able to code an entire website if your a developer.

It takes as long as it needs until you have a good portfolio and nice designs. I've been designing in education for 2 years now and I've been designing professionally for about 4 months, my portfolio is ok - for low budget clients but i wouldn't present what i have to higher clients just yet.

Its all about when you think your ready to move onto the next step, do it. Just remember to put one foot in front of the other and don't run before you can walk.

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