web designers: what education do you have?
 

how did you learn web design? what courses did you take or what art school did you go to?
can point a finger on the thing (other than raw talent) that you have learned that helps you build good looking sites/tgps today? :thumbsup

Invest a few hundred dollars and buy yourself a legal copy of Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Next, find tutorials all over the web how to setup a basic "design" and then download cool fonts to add to your Photoshop layout. Save for the web... and open it in dreamweaver. Add/tweak what you ousted from Photoshop. Look at your competitions pages, and say to yourself... do not stop practicing. By reading tutorials, being creative, and playing with tools in these programs - you can teach yourself fairly quickly.

I majored in "Look and try to duplicate", with a minor in "View Source"
Though back then, there really wasn't much to look at.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

BTW, You need Photoshop and Dreamweaver like you need a Masters Degree to pump gas.

Okay Mr. Source Code... let's see your designs.

hey, mate :thumbsup

No Doubt you've seen The Truth Hurts designs. He's a great designer, and actually excels where others can't by using Paint Shop Pro!


I pretty much come froma similar school, only mine is the School of Hard Knocks. The designers wokring for us are all self taught as well, pretty much learngin from tutorials and on the job experience.

Trial and error is your best bet. Ask questions on a designer forum,.

In my opinion the Art & Design schools are crap! I've interviewed 100's of graduates and most dind't know their head from a hole in the wall.

self taught since 9th grade (i've been outta school for 4 years now).

Sorry, I don't get into the whole dick waving thing.

Let's just say I started with (as sharky said) PSP4, and still now still use PSP7, I chop and optimize my slices one at a time, by hand, and type out every bit of my html/css to put it all together with my actual fingers.

Old habits die hard.

but there are still things like color combinations.....shape relations......visual balancing.....there is a big portion of theory that comes into play in a designer's consciousness.
designing is not just knowledge of programs as photoshop, paint shop, dreamweaver, flash etc. there must be something else besides trail and error and talent that will make a designer have a touch, a visual communication skill...something that is in everything he designs - offline including

or am I totaly off my rack here?

Good post, Zester.

i am 100% self taught, it is all just about time with the program, a knack for "art" and with that you eventually develop your own style.

most of them did it all by themselves.

edu-what?

Trial & Error, of course.

O well ... learned myself I guess ...

I didn't learn HTML or Design until after college. I started dabbling in it when I was in post grad and it just came naturally. I took a couple of logic and basic programming classes in school but nothing geared towards web development or design.

I got a copy of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and just plugged away. I used a lot of online tutorials and read a lot of books. Just working with it every day has helped quite a bit.

i learned adobe photoshop a month familiarized the tools and effects, and i try to copy some works like logos, some site like porn paysites because i see it high quality design and the placing of the images are cool, and try some tutorials for more design tricks.

be familiar with the tools first and effects and specially the layering..

The good ones I know are self tought.

I learnt photoshop reading books and tuturials. When i knew general functions of photoshop i tried to make something creative and dont copy. I think that if u will make more pages in photoshop u will have more experience and your skill will grow.

Well, I *just* got a college degree about computer-shit.. html, css, php and the lot.
I guess the graphical side of things just flows from my artistic nature, I dunno... and trial + error. Been playing with photoshop as far as I can remember.

do you feel you have the skills to design movie posters? catalogs ? record album covers ?

Why do people allways talk about designer's when they should ask about marketers.

100% self taught. Everyone I've ever met who went to college for web design doesn't know shit about how to design a good website.

Awsome, someone else who actually pics apart psd's one piece at a time and builds the code right! :thumbsup

I don't know how many times I try to tell people photoshop is an image editor, not a webpage builder. :disgust