Learning web design skills can lead to a fulfilling and exciting career, especially if you’re a problem-solver or are creative. But it can seem overwhelming to get started, especially if you don’t know what skills you’ll need. If you’re wondering if this is the right career, it’s easier than you think to get started creating websites.
Becoming a Designer
Many web designers open their own business or at least try freelancing. But in the beginning, it might take a while to get enough customers to turn a good profit. Don’t give up. If you want to have a full-time business, try cutting down your living expenses. If you have debt, such as student loans, consider refinancing them to get a lower interest rate. Before jumping into starting a business, try using an online calculator to preview your potential monthly savings. While it might seem obvious that you need to know about design, visual design might be a little different than you think since it focuses on digital products. The principles of design are used to create the feel and look of a site. The principles range from typography to grid systems to proportions. You’ll also need to know something about color. Creating a website is the time to start experimenting with fonts, color palates, and type hierarchy.
Making a Good User Experience
UX, or user experience, means how users feel when they use your site. The user approach is about putting the users first when making your design. How can you help a visitor get what they need from your site? It takes some research to find the answer to this question. You’ll spend some time creating profiles of imaginary users who would visit the site. Then you’ll create a site map and layout the pages based on the path that a user might take. For instance, will they go right to the social media pages? Or will they go to your contact page first?
Learn to Use the Right Software
The right tools will help you do your work more efficiently. You can create a site in a web browser, but today, designers use tools to make assets like images and logos and set up mockups. As a professional, you’ll need to know how to use them, but you can try some free alternatives if you’re just getting started.
Have Good Coding Skills
You might not have thought that you would need to know how to code for this career. But for many jobs, it’s necessary. HTML means Hypertext Markup Language. It’s the coding language that you’ll use to place content on the site and structure it. So, you’ll be creating paragraphs, footers, and headers, as well as videos, photos, graphics, and videos. The partner to HTML is CSS, also known as Cascading Style Sheets. CSS tells a browser how to style HTML on a site. It’s what makes content like the text look good. You can change the fonts, adjust the colors, and add backgrounds. Using CSS is where you should have an eye for detail and make each site unique. Coding is a great place to start if you want to be a web designer.
