Web Design: Drinking From a Firehose
Learning web design is a difficult task, involving learning many technologies all at once! By Ray Wenderlich.
Image credit: Mario Trejo
Believe it or not, this is the first site I’ve made from scratch since around 1997. And wow a lot of things have changed since then.
Before I used to make web sites in straight HTML using tables and transparent GIFs for layout, and used tools like Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop (4.0!) to make simple effects. The web sites back then were very basic and didn’t look all that good, so it was easy for an amateur to get in there and make a decent (comparatively) site.
Trying to get back into web design after all this time has been a bit of a shock, to say the least. There are a ton new new topics to learn all at once – CSS, PHP, Photoshop, Illustrator, WordPress, effective blogging, social media, design skills in general. The bar has been raised extremely high, due to the many talented artists and designers in the field. And for software developers like me without much artistic background – it seems like drinking from a firehose!
But, as with learning anything new, all you can do is take one step at a time. The learning is actually a lot of fun – it’s one of the main reasons I like software development as a field. And there are a lot of folks like Dan Cederholm and Chris Coyier who have been kind enough to share their experience and wisdom so web design n00bs like me can get up to speed quicker!
So yes, getting into web design is like drinking from a firehose. But if you’re thirsty to learn – that may be just what you need.