Web design has many different facets and it can be hard to know where to start. We want to make it easy for you, and we’ve put together a lot of great information to help you become a web designer.
We’ll explore these fundamental steps in learning web design:
- Understanding the key concepts of visual design
- Know the basics of HTML
- Understand CSS
- Learn the basics of UX Design
- Get familiar with UI Design
- Understand the basics of design creation
- Learn about typography
- Put your knowledge into action and build something
- Get a mentor
What is web design and what makes it work?
Yes If you want to learn how to design websites, the first step is to understand what exactly web design is.
Web design is part art and part science, tapping into both the creative and analytical sides of a person’s mind.
Web designers take what is conceptual and t translate into images. Images, typography, colors, text, negative space, and structure come together to offer not only a user experience, but also a conduit to communicate ideas. Web design skills cover a variety of techniques and expertise in creating websites that are both functional and visually appealing.
A good web designer understands the importance of each piece of a design. They make decisions on a granular level, styling each element, never losing sight of how the elements will combine and work to meet the most important design goals.
No matter how spectacular the visuals of a design are web are, they don’t make sense without organization. Logic should guide the arrangement of ideas and visual elements on each page, as well as direct the way users will travel through it. A skilled web designer creates designs that offer the fewest clicks.
Web design can be divided into several sub-disciplines. Some designers make their careers specializing in areas like UI, UX, SEO, and other areas of expertise. As you begin your journey as a designer, you should know a bit about all of these different facets of web design.
Web Designs Work with the Back-End
You are going to find the terms back- end and front-end as you learn to design websites. Most beginners mix them up, so it’s important to know how they differ.
The back-end is everything that goes on behind the scenes when displaying a website. Websites reside on servers. When a user requests to navigate to a specific section of a website, the server takes this incoming information and, in turn, fires all the HTML and other code so that it displays correctly in the user’s browser. Servers host the data that a website requires to function.
Web developers who specialize in back-end development are usually programmers who work in languages like PHP. They can also use a Python framework like Django, write Java code, manage SQL databases, or use other programming languages or frameworks to ensure that servers, applications, and databases work together.
To become a web designer, you don’t need to delve too deep into what’s going on in the back-end, but you should at least understand its purpose. This is an advanced topic, but for those who want to become a full-fledged developer, it’s just as important as understanding front-end fundamentals like HTML.We’ve put together this detailed graphic design archive to show you all the major developments in design that have gotten us to where we are today.
How to Learn Web Design (in 9 Steps)
1. Understand the key concepts of visual design
Line
Each letter, border, and division in a design is made up of lines that make up its larger structure. Learning web design means understanding how to use lines to create order and balance in a design.
Shapes
The three basic shapes in visual design are squares, circles, and triangles. Squares and rectangles work for blocks of content, circles work for buttons, and triangles are often used for icons that accompany an important message or call to action. Shapes also carry a sense of emotion, with squares associated with strength, circles with harmony and comfort, and triangles with importance and action.
Texture
Texture replicates something in the world real. Through texture, we get an idea of whether something is rough or smooth. Textures can be seen throughout the web design. From papery backgrounds to the colored wisps of a Gaussian blur, consider the different types of textures that can make your designs more interesting and give them a sense of physicality.
Color
If you want to learn how to design websites and create websites that are easy on the eyes, you need to educate yourself on color theory. Understanding the color wheel, complementary colors, contrasting colors, and the emotions that different colors evoke will make you a better web designer. A big part of knowing how to design the web is knowing what color combinations look good together.
Grids
Grids have their roots in the early days of graphic design. They bring order to images, text and other elements in a web design. Learn how to structure your web designs using grids.
2. Learn the basics of HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) provides instructions for how content, images, navigation, and other elements of a website are displayed on the web. someone’s web browser. Although you don’t need to be an HTML expert, it helps to be familiar with how it works, even if you’re using a visual design platform like Webflow.
HTML tags are the instructions a browser uses to generate a website. Headings, paragraphs, links, and images are controlled by these tags. In particular, you’ll want to know how heading tags like H1, H2, and H3 tags are used for the content hierarchy. In addition to affecting the structure of the layout, header tags are important in how web crawlers classify a layout and affect how it shows up in organic search rankings.
For more For information on the basics of HTML and CSS, see this lesson from Webflow University.
3. Understanding CSS
CSS (or Cascading Style Sheets) provides additional styling and instructions for how an HTML element will appear. Doing things like applying fonts, adding padding, setting alignment, choosing colors, and even creating grids is all possible through CSS.
Knowing how CSS works will give you the skills to create unique-looking websites and customize them. existing templates. Let’s review some key CSS concepts.
CSS Classes
A CSS class is a list of attributes that come together to style an individual element. Something like body text could have font, size, and color as part of a single CSS class.
CSS Combination Classes
A combination class is created by from an existing base class. It inherits all attributes such as size, color, and alignment that may already be in place. The attributes can then be changed. Combined classes save you time and allow you to set up variations of a class that you can apply wherever you need in a web design.
Knowing how CSS works is essential when learning web design. As mentioned in the section on HTML, we recommend that you visit Webflow University to learn more about how CSS works.
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