Need help/advice on getting a junior web design position

[The Lillster]

I've been wanting to get some kind of job in the web design sector for years now, but i've never really been that confident in my web design skills.

 

Normally because the job description says you need asp, .NET, plus all other sorts of technical stuff.

 

Now I know there are some basic webdesign positions out there, but what would be the minimal skills I need to get a job in webdesign?

 

Obviously I will need x/html, css and javascript. I have a book on xhtml and css. Should I get a book on javascript too?

 

If anyone could give me some advice, that would be great thanks?

 

Or is it best to just sell your own webdesigns or get contracted, etc...?

 

One more thing, i'm not really very good at the whole html thing I normally use dreamweaver, but I really want to do stuff like code in notepad (which isn't that good for html editing). So what's a good editor for html code?

[Wesley]

I really don't know how this industry works. But seeing as no one has replied yet... I thought I'd try bullshit something!

 

Well if I were going down that route and I didn't have any qualification in web design, then I'd do pretty much most of the things you just said. Get a book on JavaScript, learn that, start learning as much as you can. While doing this creating websites and giving services to current websites (either free or charged) which can go towards your portfolio. Maybe create your own online company that provides services that you'd expect to provide as part of a team in the job you want. Then after a few years start looking for some jobs that fit and show your skill and passion.

[Raining_again]

You pretty much HAVE to know how to code html with notepad. Its a fundamental part of web design. You'd get laughed out of an interview if you cant code from scratch.

 

Start off yourself, get a website built for you - your webdesign services and knowledge, offer to do websites for friends or people you know! Build up your experience. (even if you have to do it for free)

 

I think these companies do value experience, and if you have a big portfolio all the better.

 

Get tons of books and get studying! Depending on your circumstances, maybe try a few night courses or something? Its handy to have an expert to ask for help. I know I really learnt a lot from my web-design tutor.

 

Good luck with it!

 

Also: try to learn something new (a new language or a new feature!) with every project you get your hands on... Then you build up all kinds of knowledge!

[Cubechris]

Code in notepad.

Learn CSS (CSS Edit for mac is superb)

and learn javascript.

 

I'm not familar with js, but many folks in the industry are touting that as the thing to learn. Especially for a junior role. Oh and as raining said, get your own site, (self hosted with a domain, if you want to be taken seriously) and get a portfolio on the go.

[The Lillster]

Sorry I mean are there any good text editor type programs, which basicly make reading raw html code easier to manage?

 

I've actually brought domains and hosting a few years back, but I had help with all the coding etc... Actually, i've got some hosting from a friend, but I suppose i'll have to invest in my own domain/hosting eventually.

 

Btw when I eventually get round to it, what's a good scripting language to learn? I've heard python is quite good?

 

But most webdesign jobs i've seen, you need extensive experiance in asp or asp.NET.

 

ANy clues on what's a good scripting language to start off with?

[Wesley]

I remember using Smart HTML back in the day.

[Ten10]

I find that using something like Notepad++ is good for any and everything. infact I keep forgetting to install it on the machine at my work place. The only downside to being in a web design position of any kind is if the company you work for uses some form of wysiwyg cms system. Something like that is very limiting to an experienced web designer. I would post a link to the first website I ever made but its a little bit too 2001.

 

I would say look into the field of web layouts. Using tables to create page layouts as been something done for years, but the industry is slowly moving in the way of divisions for that kind of thing.

 

But I would say Learn php while your there as well. Its not hard to pick up, its just that php will help you to write more, conservative and well designed code. Additionally there are other routes that you can take as your starting out. Maybe look into something called J query which is a more concise form of Javascript:

 

J Query

Notepad++

 

Bu this image here wil give you the jist of how things play out in the web dev field these days:

 

 

If I have anything to add I'll edit my post.

[Shorty]

I would never code with notepad anymore. I used to, I learnt to code with notepad, but it is not a practical program.

 

If you could create a website using notepad, one that validates, then that's great, that's enough, you shouldn't do it after that.

 

Free programs like TextMate (mac) and Notepad++ are much, much better. They colour code your tags, close them for you with a single press, make formatting much easier, can analyse your text for unclosed tags, have a line number displayed. TextMate even has some great features like: type "Lorem", press tab and hey presto, it puts in a whole paragraph of Lorem Ipsum.

 

Personally I use dreamweaver. Not because I want to code with a WYSIWYG editor (because frankly, what you see in Dreamweaver's design preview, even CS4's 'Live' preview, is never really what you get) but because of most of the reasons above. Color coding, auto finishing tags, bringing up a list of &x; characters, bringing up a little drop down box with all my styles from my external sheet whenever I type id=" or class=".

 

 

 

But I've gone a bit off topic here I say, study your html and css books, but make sure they're up to date. These days XHTML 1.1 strict is where it's at, and it's not hard to create a valid site in this markup. I bet a CSS book would be great, there are still things I'm teaching myself today about CSS that can make your code much shorter and simpler to the same effect.

 

Javascript, yes, definitely learn this, books are always good. If you want to learn to make really nice looking layouts with clever effects, it's always nice to have javascript. But, just as with Flash, you need to learn also how to provide for people who have javascript turned off For example, on my main site, if you do not have flash enabled, the menu reverts to a html version. But if you do not have javascript then you can't detect flash, so there also needs to be a version that appears if you do not have javascript turned on. Apparently only something like 5% of people browse without javascript, but it's not that small a figure

 

If you become part of a team of web designers, you can pretty much stop there. I've nearly finished making a site now, where I made the template in photoshop, coded the css and html, with a little bit of javascript. Then I'm going to hand it over to someone else, who's going to code the clever server side stuff with php in order to make it work. I'm teaching myself php and mysql so that I can do that aspect if I must, and if I get on ok with it I'll move on to asp (then maybe eventually some other stuff, xml, perl, java) but it's kinda taking a back seat because when it comes to template design, you often don't need that stuff.

[The Lillster]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

I've brought a book, well two books infact.

 

The first one is 'Build your own web site The right way using html & css. By Ian Llloyd.

 

The 2nd book is php and mysql for dynamic wev sites second edition. And that's by Larry Ullman.

 

Oh yeh and i've downloaded and installed notepad++.

 

By the way, i've heard python is quite good, apparantly it's a lot faster than php?

 

Well my plan at the moment is, to make a good looking website using html and css only. No images just text.

 

Then i'm gonna try and put together a php website.

[Ten10]

You will need a Php capable web server to render your php based website pages. If you try to view it on your local machine without any form of php server in use, you won't see a thing. I know that there is one you can drop on a memory stick, on the portableapps website. Its called Xampp or something.

[thirtynine.]

Learn to design?

No one covered this.

Have you got any examples?

[Ten10]

The fastest way to learn web dev would bt to look at the world wide web consortium's schools website which gives indepth tutorials on different aspects of web design.

 

http://www.w3schools.com/

[The Lillster]

You will need a Php capable web server to render your php based website pages. If you try to view it on your local machine without any form of php server in use, you won't see a thing. I know that there is one you can drop on a memory stick, on the portableapps website. Its called Xampp or something.

 

 

I've setup the webserver.

 

Got php, mysql and apache running.

 

By the way, I have made websites before, it's just that I did it the lazy way and never really thought about getting a job in it.

 

Once I get going, i'll post some web designs i've made.

 

Learn to design?

No one covered this.

Have you got any examples?

 

http://lillster.sirwhite.com/gaming/ucg.html

 

I designed this in adobe fireworks.