November 29, 2009
Hi,
I wrote a quick article on what you should know (in terms of nerd skills) to be a professional web designer. From the article:
The skills of a professional web designer are constantly changing because the Web is constantly changing.
This fast-paced nature of the Web is considered good by some (because it opens up opportunity) while others hate it because you have to be ready to learn new web design skills regularly.
… Personally, I see it as an opportunity with a headache!
I’m not sure how pretentious it is to quote your own writing .. I’ll let you decide. Anyway, check it out:
The skills of a modern web designer.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
read more
November 6, 2009
Hi,
Yet another blog post based on an email question … the email:
Hello Stefan,
I just got through watching your video on basic web design. Before I decide to purchase this beginning video I wanted to ask a few questions.
I am currently seeking alternate ways to generate income. I live in a small town type atmosphere and think maybe there is a future in business web site development. I have built a web site many moons ago using Front Page and it didn’t turn out half bad for not knowing exactly what I was doing.
My questions are:
#1. Is it possible to gain the knowledge to develop attractive beneficial web sites without obtaining a college degree in computer science?
#2. I realize that starting out with the beginner course is the starting point, but where will (or should) that lead?
#3. What is a typical cost for someone to hire a web designer? I don’t want to rake anyone over the coals but feel I should charge a fair affordable price.
#4.In the old days when all we had was dial-up, the key was to keep website design to a minimum so that the pages load faster and keeps the visitor’s interest (same goes for the number of pages). Is this logic still true or are visitors looking for “wow” when they visit a website?
Thanks and look forward to your response.
Chris
My answer:
I’m going to answer you in point form – check it out:
#1. Yes. The best designers and programmers I know have neither.
#2. Once you understand the basics, your decisions as to what your web-specialization should be will be much easier to make. That decision will be largely made based on what you like to do. For example, some people may choose to get into Flash based work while others may choose to get more into PHP.
#3. Cost varies considerably based on the experience and talent of the designer and on where you happen to live.
#4. Speed of the site is always important. But, since we are in the age of Youtube, you have a lot more latitude than what we had in the 1990’s.
That all said, the best place to start your career as a web designer, is to start by learning the basics of HTML and CSS.
I hope that answers your questions,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
read more
November 6, 2009
Hi,
Once and a while I use an email question as the basis of a blog post. This time, someone wanted to know about Dreamweaver and PHP:
Hi Stefan,
I am looking to get some videos on using Dreamweaver cs4 creating dynamic sites with PHP and MYSQL, do you have any videos on this using the drag and drop features etc with some code writing also?
Many thanks
Andy
My answer:
Hi Andrew,
The short answer:
Dreamweaver‘s drag and drop features are very brittle. I was a beta
tester for DW CS4 and the programmers themselves told me that they would
be looking to trash it for the next version of Dreamweaver – they knew
it was a mess.
… It can be used for simple things (and prototyping), but the code is so messy and
convoluted, that any changes that you will probably have to make to
your project could be a nightmare. You are much better off learning PHP
and using Dreamweaver as a PHP code editor … and it’s pretty good at that.
In my basic course on PHP, I use Dreamweaver as the code editor and I
touch on in as far as how Dreamweaver can be used to write PHP code. You
can see a bunch of sample videos here: http://www.killerphp.com/videos/
Let me know if this helps,
Stefan
read more
