Start me on basic web design

[DanLights]

I wanna learn the basics of web design and make a basic looking website, I plan to pay a web designing class in like 6 months when I have hte time and money, but I want to start getting basic right now. I know there are many awesome designers in this board and I would like any advice you could give me.

Any free web designing software? If not reccomend me the best that isn't overkill and super expensive for my basicness (adobe dreamweaver i.e.), by the way I don't know any code except very basic html. What should I learn first? any website with good tutorials?

Any advice is appreciated!

 

[AudioPhile777]

the "design" aspect is very broad.

Learn CSS. http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

brush up on your html (you can find more on that at the same link).

dive head first.

 

[G1]

backwards engineering is how i started off.
started off by downloading web design templates and loading them into a web coding application and messed about seeing what did what
it takes a fair few hours to get to grips with everything but the more time you spend messing about the more you'll learn dude !

 

[SocialNumb]

backwards engineering is how i started off.
started off by downloading web design templates and loading them into a web coding application and messed about seeing what did what
it takes a fair few hours to get to grips with everything but the more time you spend messing about the more you'll learn dude !

I did the same. I also learned a lot of basics by using wysiwyg editors. Just look at the code after. Gets the basics down pretty quick I think. Also, I like CMS programs like Joomla. Tis the one I'm working on at the moment: http://livingthenight.com/ The server is shit so excuse the loading time.

Yeah, lots of work still to do. I don't actually enjoy it.

 

[ahjteam]

Any free web designing software?

Since I don't use WYSIWYG editors and I code by hand (I did the Lasse Lammert website for example), been doing that since 1997. And since I'm a bit old school, I also I use only old school programs to do my websites because they have been proven to be pretty stable compared, so why upgrade?
- Microsoft Notepad for quickfixes (this one is version 5.1, comes with Windows XP)
- PHP Coder Pro for majority of html and php coding, a freebie. Available at www.phpide.com (this one I'm using is from 2000, version 0.8.9.2)
- Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 for image editing, since Photoshop was too expensive back in the day (this is like super-old now, I think it was released in 2003 or 2004). Gimp is a nice free alternative

 

[DanLights]

I'm taking all of your tips in consideration, thank you all. Anssi, I used to have that one too years ago, most probably from 2003 or 04 also, it was pretty good as far as I remember

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

1) Learn HTML.
2) Learn CSS.
3) Aim for clean, simple and stylish.
4) Never, EVER start doing it for money as a freelancer. Trust me on this one

 

[xFkx]

My latest discovery...

1.) download the Gaia flash framework
2.) ?????
3.) Profit

 

[arv_foh]

My latest discovery...

1.) download the Gaia flash framework
2.) ?????
3.) Profit

I'm so over Flash nowadays. Overused, bogs down websites, most people don't use it efficiently, I could go on... Plus I wanted to rip my fucking hair out when I was learning it

Also OP I know you said free but I use Dreamweaver and I like it a lot.

 

[Melb_shredder]

Going to uni and currently learning all this stuff has been fantastic!
If you want to just build a simple page with just some info etc, without a way for a user to interact with your site, as in, sign up etc.
Then simple HTML and CSS is fine.
If you want people to be able to sign up and do that sort of thing.
Then you will need to learn some PHP and Database stuff.

www.w3schools.com IS probably the BEST tutorial based site for this sort of thing