KillerSites Blog

The road-map to becoming a professional web designer.

December 13, 2006

Steps to becoming a professional web designer

I’ve been asked this many times:

‘What are the steps to becoming a professional web designer?’

To make a long story short, you need web design skills (listed below) and lots of practice to develop your skills.

A NERD’S ROAD-MAP TO (BECOMING A) PROFESSIONAL WEB DESIGNER

  1. Learn HTML
  2. Learn CSS
  3. Learn basic design skills – how to make a page look good: color combinations, white space etc.
  4. Learn how to produce images for use on the web. Photoshop or something similar will have to learned.
  5. Build a portfolio of websites.

After you’ve mastered the techniques and technologies of web design, you will need to show your skills – that’s where the good portfolio comes in.

That means it is time to build websites for yourself, friends and strangers.

Practice makes perfect … with each new site that you build, and with each new ‘client’ that you work with, the better you will become.

ABOUT WORKING WITH PEOPLE/CLIENTS

You may have not considered it, but being able to work well with people, is just about as important as having good coding skills!

… You need to learn how to communicate well, because it is crucial if you want to get the job done.

I will get more into that in another article.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com