How should a graphic designer learn web design?

Question

I am a Computer Information Systems undergrad student. I have a friend who is majoring in Graphic Design, and is very interested in web design. Our university does not have web design courses (though we do have ASP based web development courses). She has the mind of a designer, not an engineer; the only experience she has had with web design is using Adobe Dreamweaver (is that even used in professional circles anymore?). I'd like to be able to recommend a starting point for her. I'm thinking of suggesting some books on XHTML and CSS, and then introducing a CMS platform like WordPress. But I'm not sure how relevant those books would given the changes in the increasingly popular HTML5 and CSS3 standard. With so many technologies and concepts to master, I could imagine that it could be discouraging. What course of action would you recommend?

CSS3 is just CSS + new styles. I don't know about HTML5 vs HTML 4 vs XHTML, but CSS will always be relevant since CSS3 is essentially just a new feature set over it. — BoltClock, Jul 19 '11 at 15:27
@Raynos: Yeah I really shouldn't be talking about something I haven't caught up with myself yet :/ — BoltClock, Jul 19 '11 at 15:31
@BoltClock let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/1633/discussion-between-raynos-and-boltclock) — Raynos, Jul 19 '11 at 15:38
My advice? Don't fall into the XHTML trap. If you're not using XML or SVG, you don't need it. — , Jul 19 '11 at 16:21

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 19 '11 at 15:29

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Would be the resources I would recommend. Outside of those I would just mess around with web design.

answered Jul 19 '11 at 15:29

Raynos

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Michael · Answer 2 · 2011-07-19T15:34:08.247

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I would recommend starting with HTML5 and CSS3, there are plenty of beginner books out there, some better than others, HTML and CSS are still the foundation for a beginner, but good books will include the basics anyway. My reasoning for this is that anyone just starting should be thinking toward the future.

edited Jul 19 '11 at 15:34

answered Jul 19 '11 at 15:28

Michael

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 23 '12 at 16:00

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If you're looking for a good bridge between Graphic Design and coding, I would push a new user to

http://www.codecademy.com

I've pushed a few buddies of mine there and it's fascinating to watch them progress so quickly. Once you get them to learn the HTML / CSS basics there, there are other options based on what specific element they want to go to next (ASP, Ruby, etc)

Hope this helps!

answered Sep 23 '12 at 16:00

Mark Urquhart

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Best of a bad bunch I guess... probably better than W3Schools, but the very first HTML tutorial on Codeacademy uses invalid markup! – Stu Cox Sep 23 '12 at 21:53
I've stepped through some of their classes and I found the fundamentals to be there. Realistically, I use CodeAcademny to send newbies to a nice interface that teaches the "blocking and tackling" and then send them to W3Schools to perfect markup – Mark Urquhart Sep 24 '12 at 01:08
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I'd specifically advise against W3Schools - it's full of bad/outdated practices, misleading wording and errors... give this a read: http://w3fools.com. – Stu Cox Sep 24 '12 at 06:03

spraff · Answer 4 · 2011-07-19T16:35:09.207

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Do it for fun. Everything else comes after.

Okay, I'll expand.

Most important lesson: separate form from content. Stick to the CSS philosophy and reap the benefits

Second most important lesson: start with basic, old, well-supported HTML4 and CSS1. Learn Javascript in this environment, there are fewer distractions. The fancier HTML5 stuff is a natural evolution from that.

Book-wise, I learned a lot from HTML 4.0 for the World Wide Web by Castro. It's old but good.

w3schools is ~~excellent reference~~ the reference that I'm used-to, have a look at mozilla's pages instead.

quirksmode.org is great for cross-browser issues.

There's no substitute for Firefox when developing. Get Firebug.

edited Jul 19 '11 at 16:35

answered Jul 19 '11 at 15:27

spraff

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While I generally agree with that statement, it is also good to have a starting point, and learn best practices as you go. – Sean W. Jul 19 '11 at 15:49
W3Schools is not an excellent reference. It's probably the _worst_ reference – Raynos Jul 19 '11 at 16:19
w3schools an excellent reference ?? have a look at http://w3fools.com/ **please**.. and then use https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ – Gabriele Petrioli Jul 19 '11 at 16:21
Ignorance admitted and repaired. Can I have my zero back, please? – spraff Jul 19 '11 at 16:37
@spraff your still linking a bad reference ;) – Raynos Jul 19 '11 at 17:51

Loktar · Answer 5 · 2011-07-19T16:34:11.347

If they are looking to Design I would direct them to sites such as

To learn,

http://psdtuts.com

http://smashingmagazine.com

And for inspiration

http://www.webcreme.com/

http://www.cssdrive.com/

http://www.csselite.com/

While learning server side will definitely help I think its the wrong route for someone who wants to design. You can be an awesome web designer and get jobs without knowing how to code at all (granted knowing at least front end coding makes you 100% more attractive), design is a whole separate beast IMO.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 01 '11 at 03:17

If she's more inclined to design than engineering I wouldn't push her too hard into highly technical areas. A bit of HTML and CSS would be good.

But a tool like Dreamweaver is very useful for people intimidated by code and even for coders that don't mind IDE style development, it provides useful tools for editing CSS and HTML, but also allows you to edit the code yourself.

A List Apart is a great design resource.

How should a graphic designer learn web design?

6 Answers6