Learning Web Design: A Web Designer's Quest

By Author: Alex White
Total Articles: 2
Comment this article

You know, there are loads of WYSIWYG web design programs out there that claim to turn you into a pro. Nothing could be further than the truth. What these programs do is give you a bunch of templates and all you do is replace the images and text. You want do that and call yourself a designer? I should hope not.

The joy of originality

Sometimes the easy option turns out to be the harder option in the long run. One can go on using the same old tired templates that other ignorant folk use. Wouldn't it be great if you can sketch out a web page layout on paper then make it happen? You know it would!
This is where it is crucial to know how to use CSS. It has been said that CSS is harder to get your head around than using tables for layout, but I think that it is the other way around. For me, and I'm sure you'll find it for yourself, CSS layouts are so much easier to get your head around. Why? Okay, with tables I personally found that it was difficult to get precise measurements - regardless of setting table widths and so on. I'd check my tables in different browsers only to see it displayed wrong in either Internet ...
... Explorer or Firefox. Bah! CSS is not without problems, but I have found that the CSS problems can be easier to identify and fix. Besides, one can do a whole lot more in CSS than in tables.
Futuretrend's Adobe Dreamweaver course certainly opened up my mind to the power of CSS based design. CSS design is so lean and clean. CSS based websites are more favoured by search engines as they are much more accessible than table based sites.

The Challenge

Why not take the Adobe Dreamweaver CSS challenge yourself? Why not endeavour to make your site accessible to the max? Trust me, going on Futuretrend's Adobe Dreamweaver course and learning CSS is one of the best things I've done towards my career as a Web Designer. Now, when I look at web design magazines I'm able to understand the tutorials; whereas before I'd struggle to understand them.
While on the course my trainer (who was absolutely brilliant by the way) recommended a couple other options for me to consider such as an Adobe Photoshop course to ensure that I was optimising my images and laying out my pages as professionally as possible.
So...you still want to hang on to your substandard WYSIWYG web design program? That's right, throw it in the trash can! Get your pencil and sketch pad out, draw a unique layout for your site then realize it in CSS and Adobe Dreamweaver.

If you are still having problems putting it all together then take Futuretrend's Adobe Dreamweaver course which will show you how to design a CSS web site from the bottom up.
Follow that up with their Adobe Photoshop Course and you are really on the road to becoming a real web design pro.

www.futuretrend.co.uk