How to get started as a web designer?

Question

User interface

I wanted to try myself in this area. What should be done at the first stage?

Answer 1

The first step is to consider whether you need it at all. You can't drive up to good design on a crooked goat.
First of all: Mike Monteiro "Design is work." Even if you don't design later, the book is still useful.
In many ways, it eliminates the romantic approach like “a designer is an artist.”
The second stage is to learn: to watch and do your own.
Only, in the name of all the Norse gods, look not at Behance and Dribble. It's beautiful, of course, the style, everything, but in the end, 95% of the work there is just pictures.
And web design is first and foremost a script. The designer determines how the user will use the site: it is in his power to make the interface simple and clear, or to confuse it to the point of impossibility.
Look at the work of the Gorbunov Bureau, especially the creation process.
Accordingly, their work should also be considered from the point of view of usefulness, and not external beauty. Aesthetics is the third stage.
To learn means to read, first of all. Doing it right requires a system.
It’s better to read from the general to the specific, it’s worth starting with this:
Donald Norman “Design of ordinary things”
Victor Papanek “Design for the real world”
Parallel:
Heinrich Altshuller “Finding an idea”
37Signals “Getting Real”
The web is an interface, it means:
Jeff Raskin
“ New Directions in Computer System Design”, “About the Interface”
Bruce Tognazzini “Main Principles of Interaction Design”
Jakob Nielsen Web Design. Jakob Nielsen's Book"
Web is font and text, so:
Jan Tschichold "New Typography"
Emil Ruder "Typography"
Nora Gal "Word Living and Dead"
Sasha Karepina "The Art of Business Writing"
Web Structure and Layout:
Tim Harrower "Desktop newspaper designer's book
Muller-Brockman "Grids in Graphic Design"
Leaving the books on self-management and negotiation behind the scenes, this is another phase.
We have already said about the English language and the ability to typeset, I will not repeat myself.

Answer 2

They wrote garbage here about "taste", about "immediately into battle", etc.
If you want to try your hand at web design, then you should definitely read books about UX , read about how fonts are arranged on the web . You need to read about what vertical rhythm is, how various grids are built . Any really good web designer should be able to do some typesetting, so you can take some kind of online layout course and lay out a couple of sites to understand how it all works.

Answer 3

1 big tip if you want really serious money:
Never learn from Russians (no offense will be said), forget about online courses, youtube videos, blogs, Lebedev's books, and other nonsense in Russian. Of course, you can learn from them, I'm not a decree for you, but at the very beginning you will receive knowledge that is not very useful and outdated.
Big Tip 2 - "The only way to get smarter is to play with a smarter opponent" - Basic Chess, 1883 Go to Dribbble and Behance and see the top web design work. Try to repeat, then everything will be on the subconscious and a sense of taste will appear.
3 big advice - Learn English
ps And yes, there are prospects, and very big ones, but not in Russian freelancing.

Answer 4

• take web design lessons at tutsplus.com
  
• read books and articles about UX and design
  
• design website elements, pages, etc. - Total
  
• to ask questions
  
• keep a diary describing processes and projects
  

Answer 5

Everything is said vectorially correct, but the topic of USABILITY is not mentioned anywhere.
Do not forget about the psychology of using ordinary web things, the psychology of users.
The sooner all this is taken into account in interfaces, design projects, the less problematic will be the topics for adapting everything created for users. After all, as a result, you need to understand that everything that will be created is all for people, for their use! Well, after that there will already be profit, money, as a sequence ....

Answer 6

Websites have their own specifics, but the rules there work like for other areas of design.
Here are the important things:
- typography.
- systemic.
- composition and grids.
-- Usability (Accessibility of the interface.)
--- a bit of marketing (a little bit)
---- Layout and programming
Everything else, concept, color scheme, cool pictures, "creativity ;-)" -- These are also important things, but they exist, in all other areas of design, perhaps in different proportions.
The hyphenated things mentioned above are the most important thing for sites.
You don't have to draw beautiful graphics and you don't have to think crazy ideas.

Answer 7

Immediately into battle, take the project together with someone (for confidence), only know the price of your skills.
And it’s better not to entertain yourself with illusions about the prospects in web design right away, the food here is not very satisfying. Although they say that the artist must be hungry.

Answer 8

The most important skills of a web designer are the presence of taste and the ability to draw. Without these skills, you will certainly be able to rivet some web pages, but you are unlikely to go beyond the average income level. Everything else (like photoshop, sketch, etc.) is just a toolkit that will need to be mastered.

Answer 9

Look at the material that is on sale and which is currently in trend: for example themeforest.net/category/psd-templates
Compare top works with your own and try to improve your work.
You can "borrow like an artist" and be sure to read this:
habrahabr.ru/company/iloveip/blog/261857
habrahabr.ru/company/iloveip/blog/263061

Answer 10

Where do you plan to work in this direction, freelancing or in the office?

Answer 11

1) Commercial / non-commercial projects
2) Usability
This is something you need to know 100%, as it affects income, and income is the original goal of 99% of projects.
It would also not hurt to learn h tml5 + css3