Hi, I'm Chris Alford and I'm in my first semester in the web design program at UK. I was just wandering if some of the older more experienced members had any advice to give someone just starting out. What helped you and got you goin?.. Anything you would change?... Any and all advice is dearly appreciated. Thanks

Chris

Hello Chris, and welcome on webmaster-talk.

Being far from a designer (I'm a programmer and db administrator by trade. Design is just not my thing), I cannot really tell you where to start, except by the graphic and css forums, for the technical parts.

Take a look at the contest section too, if you are looking for inspiration.

if you want to design website ,you should know how to use dreamweaver ,firefox and flash .these are three important tools for designer..

Originally Posted by Alfordchrs

What helped you and got you goin?.. Anything you would change?.

Hi

What kind of course are you taking and which county?

I was just a member at a gaming forum and I saw these members with these 'cool looking sig pics' of certain games (Final Fantasy!) but with their username across it. I sought advice from these members and then I started practicing my own designs.. I got to the point where I was good enough to get design requests from other members.

After a while, I decided to start up a website (Homestead/Geocities (still around!?)) - and that went well.. then I got a .com and that also went well but I had some server issue so I posted on the host' forum and I came across someone who had trouble with their vBulletin so I offered to help.. after helping them, they paid me $200 - I didn't even ask for money - they just sent it in the post! cash! all the way from the states! and I was 17 at the time so $200 was a BIG deal.

that's when I knew I had to make websites/design stuff for a living - although I did take about 3 years out from the web to pursue another career but that didn't work out.

My advice is that if you want to be good at it - do it for the love of it and not the money. If you're passionate enough.. the money will follow.

If your hobby is motorcycles then I would suggest you start giving yourself personal projects of building motorcycle-information website/galleries/graphics etc.. so at least you're learning how to become a better designer under a theme you enjoy.

My regret would be that I took 3 years off web design when I should have stuck to it and I would probably be somewhere much better than I am now - oh well.. I am still as enthusiastic as ever!

hello all.
i am Devendra.
i have come here to gather good information about various topics.
i wish i have a great time here.

My best advice is to simply build websites. Find reasons to, ask friends or family if they want a websites, or just make someone a website just for fun. The experience is what your going to need. When you get stuck, and you will get stuck. Google your problem, if you can't find it, post on here and keep moving through your website. Don't ever let a mistake stall you. Try to make different types of layouts, colors, graphics, and you'll learn a lot about everything you need to know as a web developer.
Good luck.

Think like a viewer. Whenever you build a section of a website make sure you review it. Look at it like someone else made. Then ask yourself, How could this be better?

check
double-check
triple-check
recheck
check it again
just to be sure


Remember everything you do will hopefully be viewed by 100s or even 1000s of people. Make sure its done well. It IS worth spending the extra time to make those tiny little tweaks to get everything just right.