ThinkCoffee

I was wondering about that... working with others who may have skills I don't. Do you charge for that like you would if you hired a photographer?

Thanks so much It's all very helpful... it can be a little confusing and there seems to be no shortage of programs or languages out there. How far will html and css take me as a web designer though? I guess the question is what are the limitations of just using those two for client sites. So much to learn! I'm glad I have a good solid design background - the message is the most important thing. Bells and whistles aren't any good if the message gets lost or is illegible, or annoying. I've read this elsewhere on the forums here but I have to agree that audio is extremely annoying to me as a consumer as I usually have my own music on, or silence. I think I'll steer potential clients away from that if possible. and blinky things..aaaargh! I appreciate the advice

Thank you for the concise advice ahh... cms, okay - I was wondering how that worked. I wasn't looking forward to endless emails to update sites FOREVER... I will have to look into that.. umm... cms thing. I've been working on a couple of sites and am FORCING myself to edit the code instead of the design view. It's hard as I am a visual learner but I can see that if I don't understand the code and learn how to visualize what it's doing I won't be able to fix issues when they come up. Yes, great advice! It's hard for an old designer like me not to try to edit on the design view though... I've done PASTE-UP and hand lettering/ illustration for crikey's sake. who says an old dog can't learn new tricks! Do Javascript and PHP perform the same basic functions? (it seems so to me) If so which one would be better? I understand that Javascript is a user-based engine and PHP is a server based - but do they do basically the same thing? (I'm really not interested in rainbows following the cursor or other eyesores like that lol) But databases for merchants seems to be necessary, as are the security features inherent in scripting. (Math was never my strong suit - *sigh*) I appreciate any advice and am learning a lot here.. great site!

Hi all, I've been lurking for a while (stalker! lol) I'm an experienced Print Graphic designer just beginning into the world of web design. Wow, what a difference. One pet peeve... I'm a typography geek and the web doesn't quite seem to give the nuances or control I am used to in the print industry. k.. rant over (one kudo, stock images are cheaper at smaller sizes!) My question is this. I have NO web training.. zero. I am a designer, not a programmer, but need to expand to stay current and be competitive. I will be learning this on my own as going back to school is out of my budget, in time as well as cash. I have Dreamweaver and all other CS5 programs (Mac), and am experienced in all except Dreamweaver and Flash. There's so much to learn and I'm beginning to recognize html code and some css code, but I'm learning that's just the basics. There's security, databases, scripting to get the html to do stuff. What should I be sure to learn? What's necessary to provide my clients (mostly smaller businesses) with sites that will perform as they want them to and not be a nightmare (I've heard stories). What languages/programs are essential? How does Wordpress work? Thanks ThinkCoffee (the only thing that designers actually imbibe - on duty! lol)