So You Want To Be A Web Designer?

Hello guys! It’s me again and we’re off for another beginner’s web design guide and of course this is basically for the confused souls. Many people are actually asking me where and how to start in Web Design. So, I dedicate this post to my friends and to all people who want to start their own website.

There are a few things to keep in mind before starting to make your own website. Find out after the jump!

PLAN YOUR WEBSITE
Making your website isn’t about just making it. You are going to make a website because you have a purpose. The website you’re gonna make will be seen online by thousands or even millions of people. Beginners often times do not have a clear focus of their website before they start designing it and it appears unorganized, unfocused, and the point of the web page is a bit vague. Come up with a plan and outline the major points and focus of your website design before you start. This includes, what the website is all about (ie. personal website), the content, the color and the fonts, and lastly the pictures.

FOCUS, DEDICATION & PATIENCE
A lot of people think web design is as easy copy and pasting. It is not. Designing requires focus a lot of focus, dedication and patience unless you want to end up stealing other people’s idea and that would be the last thing you’d want to do. There is no shortcut to success.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

• Notepad – Yes, I still use notepad. This is basically for editing remote codes using an FTP software. There are also times that I use notepad for pasting a content without having to adapt the original font of the content.
• Adobe Photoshop – Still the best graphic editing software. I use this for making the website template, editing the picture and their sizes, and for color determination.
• Dreamweaver – One of the best WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) softwares out there and I’m using this until now. It has both Code and Design view which makes designing the website even faster.
• FileZilla – Years back I was using cuteftp but this one is way better.
• HTML Language – The heart and soul of a web designer. I’m pretty sure you can get a lot of HTML references around the internet. Just try to google it out.

Since this is a basic web design starter’s guide, I won’t be discussing about CSS. Perhaps in my future guides.

USER FRIENDLINESS
You have to make your site pretty simple and comprehensive. Not everyone have the gift of patience to understand what your site is all about and what it offers them. Put the navigation bar for example. Make the links more readable and ALWAYS put a HOME link in any of your pages. The navigation bar tells your visitors where they are in your site.

GET YOUR DOMAIN NAME & HOSTING
This is the most painful part. LOL. Well of course you need to park your website content somewhere in the internet so you will need a domain name (ie. www.myfirstweb.com) and the webspace where you will upload your contents. Some hosting companies give packages such as free domain name for every subscription on their specific package. Domain names are usually $10 per year (around Php500) and web spaces like 30MB-50MB usually starts at $2 (around Php200) per month. Let me know if you need help on these, just drop me a comment with your email on it and I’ll be more than willing to help you out.

OTHER THINGS
Check out my other post for more specific tips.

That would be it for now. Good luck!