Learning web design from scratch - a step-by-step guide for beginners (ten stages). Web design lessons from scratch

Good day, dear reader! We have prepared for you the best websites and books for that exist on the Internet. This information will be useful for both beginners and professionals.

For each, there are many books that deserve the attention of anyone who is passionate about their activities. We offer a review of books in Russian and English.

TOP 25 useful sites for web designers

For those who like to get information from more modern sources, keep abreast of news and all innovations, we have prepared the TOP 25 best sites. A web designer is always in a creative search, so study, get inspired, and develop!

webdesignerdepot.com– interesting news in the web design space.
ruseller.com– there are a lot of templates and lessons here, especially for beginners.
flatuicolorpicker.com – convenient service, which will help you choose the interface color.
smashingmagazine.com– this portal contains information on design and web development.
instantshift.com– the resource helps you choose a design for the site.
animator.ru– all about animations and videos.
paratype.ru– information about fonts.
www.veerle.duoh.com– a professionally created blog. Filled with quality professional articles. The author provides consultations on web design.
thedieline.com– This site offers a wealth of information on packaging design.

psd.tutsplus.com is a useful portal that offers step by step lessons for beginners.
dafont.com– here you will find more than eleven thousand different fonts for any, even the most sophisticated taste.
bluevertigo.com.ar– this resource provides a list of the most popular photo banks on the network.
thefwa.com- an inspiring selection of sites.
flasher.ru— for everyone who likes to work with flash technologies, here, there’s a ton of useful tips, lessons, vacancies.
webdesign.tutorials- the largest library for a web designer.
psd tuts- everything is collected here best lessons on working and learning in Photoshop.

onextrapixel— here you will always find the latest tutorials on Photoshop, Illustrator, as well as many interesting things CSS theme, WordPress. As a bonus, there is a lot of materials for inspiration and new ideas.
behance– here you will see the work of popular and professional web designers from around the world.
adobe cooler– will help you choose color schemes.
brusheezy– on this resource you can choose any brushes for Photoshop.
logoinstant is a great site for creating creative logos.
365psd – best collection backgrounds for websites on different topics.
pixelkit.com– a huge number of free templates.

Conclusion

We are sure that we were able to help you find worthwhile literature and quality resources both for real gurus and for those who are just starting their journey in this amazing and most interesting profession. This set will be enough to start web design and improve your skills.

If this article helped you on an exciting journey into the profession of a web designer, then be sure to share it in the comments.

All the best!

From the author: Greetings, dear reader. Starting your journey as a web designer, you are probably in a huge number you come across various seminars, courses, reference books, books and web design lessons. However, not everyone can afford training that costs several thousand rubles. Moreover, truly useful and high-quality web design lessons are held only in large cities. Which exit?

To master the profession of a web designer, successfully apply your knowledge in practice and create a high-quality and useful product, it is often enough to “study” various web resources or take specialized video courses intended for beginners.

It's not that I'm against the full-time system of teaching web design. I just think that most of these courses are simply a waste of useful time to study information that is unnecessary for a beginning web designer, like “what is the Internet” or “how to install Photoshop” (you can certainly learn this on your own).

In addition, in our country there are actually no training to become web designers. That is, the specialty " graphic design" exists in many universities, however, it produces printers, illustrators, decorators, graphic designers - anyone, but not web design specialists.

Today we will talk to you about what no introductory lesson on web design from scratch is complete without - the main criteria good design: color, shape and typography. And, of course, about the concept of web design.

What is web design?

The creation of any web resource begins with the design of its interface, which should not only be convenient and understandable for the user, but also meet the goals and objectives of the site. Despite the fact that the artistic design of the interface recedes into the background, it proper use will enhance the convenience of the site, make it memorable and original.

If you don’t have artistic taste from birth, don’t worry. The main thing is to know the basics of web design, and taste will come with experience.

Color

The default monitor color is black. The primary colors - red, blue and green - are added to black and form all the other colors. If you add three primary colors, you get white. Such color model called RGB.

Some web design lessons from scratch start with a description color wheel, which is the main assistant of any web designer.

Principles of the Color Wheel

Pairs of colors located opposite each other are contrasting. For example, blue with yellow, purple with green, cyan with red;

contrasting colors are mutually exclusive. That is, if you increase the cyan level, it will automatically decrease the red level. And vice versa;

specific color obtained by mixing adjacent colors. For example, to get yellow, you need to mix green and red;

Any color can be contrasted not with one color, but with a contrasting pair. So, to increase the red value, you can lower the cyan level, or lower the blue and green values at the same time.

A small life hack: to quickly select a contrasting color, you can invert the color of any raster element using the Ctrl+I command.

When choosing color palette For the site, remember to use a safe color table to ensure that the browser renders a particular color in the correct way. If the browser cannot recognize a particular color, it may mix several nearby ones, resulting in distortion color range site.

Form.

All objects without exception have a form. We can create an object without color or texture, but the shape information cannot be omitted. Most commonly used simple forms in web design are: line, rectangle, triangle and circle.

A line can perform two functions: connecting and separating other objects. Connection example:

Modern tendencies and approaches in web development

Learn the algorithm for rapid growth from scratch in website building

Splitting example:

Rectangle. It is important to choose the proportions. Surely you have heard about the “golden ratio” - dividing a segment into parts in such a way that the ratio of the smaller part to the larger is the same as the ratio of the larger to the entire length of the segment. Below is an example in which point C divides segment AB so that AC:AB= CB:AC.

So, the principle of the “golden ratio” is observed not only in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, but also in all areas of science and art, including web design. It is believed that the “golden ratio” generates harmony. For example, in a photograph, important objects should be located at a distance of 3/8 and 5/8 from the edge, that is, in important visual centers.

Triangle. This is a difficult figure for web design to achieve. different effects. Often it does not fit well into the overall picture, however, when correct use, for example in logos, can emphasize the reliability and sustainability of the company.

Circle. Like the triangle, this shape is good in logos, icons and other small objects. In large objects and screen design, the circle is rarely used.

Typography.

The work of a web designer is not only about drawing objects and their correct location in space. One of the most important tasks is to make the text that we see on the monitor screen beautiful and readable.

Different platforms and browsers tend to display fonts differently (which is incredibly frustrating for both users and web designers), so try to use safe fonts that are guaranteed to display across all browsers.

basic - for the main materials of the site. Use readable simple fonts with convenient line spacing(about 1.5 times the height of the characters);

display - for headings. This font can be distinguished not only by size, but also by color;

additional - for navigation, important information, menu logo, quotes, etc.

That's all for now. The next web design tutorial will cover the basics of Photoshop.

In conclusion, I want to say that everyone can master the basics of design skills. You just need to have the desire, put in some effort and devote time to learning. The basics of web design (color, object shapes, and fonts) are the foundation on which learning should be built.

Take the time to look through the portfolios of various talented designers or the websites of famous companies and pay special attention to the above elements. This will help you develop good taste and perhaps develop your own style.

Subscribe to our updates and be the first to receive web design lessons. See you again!

Modern trends and approaches in web development

Learn the algorithm for rapid growth from scratch in website building

In this collection you can find books and guides that will help you understand the basics of web design or improve your skills if you already have experience in this field. The list includes 13 books in English and 7 in Russian (at the same time great occasion improve your English).

Web Designer's Success Guide

With the help of this guide, designers will more confidently take their first steps in the field of freelancing. The author of the book describes step by step where to start working as a freelancer, how to search for new clients and retain regular ones, how to make your projects successful, as well as what markets are available to freelancers.

A manual designed for designers, developers and managers. The book outlines the features of creating websites, software, hardware and consumer products for the elderly and people in rehabilitation. After studying the information provided, you can create projects that are useful and accessible to all users.

A book for beginners and experienced professionals working with JavaScript web technology. The book talks about JavaScript basics and design patterns - their features, application. Real practical examples solutions to many problems that often arise when creating software products.

A must-have book for those taking their first steps in learning HTML5. A guide written by Mark Pilgrim explains the history and features modern version markup language. The author reveals Interesting Facts and gives examples of using the canvas element, flash and other technologies in programming.

The HTML Dog resource has prepared information about HTML5 technology for readers. This manual designed for people who don't even have basic knowledge about HTML or CSS. The online tutorial covers using tags, attributes, creating paragraphs, headings, lists, and other elements using HTML5. Practical examples will help you consolidate your knowledge.

A third published and very popular book about web development. The twelve chapters of the online book describe in detail the process of creating websites and outline the main mistakes that developers make. The author, from a practical point of view, considers not only the features of constructing the structure of the site and individual pages, but also design, usability, interface creation and much more.

A book on typography. Provides data on different fonts– their structure, functioning and visual design features of each individual project. Practical examples will help you learn how to choose the most advantageous font for designing visual content and correctly displaying data.

Font Guide. The book provides detailed description 10 main font groups with brief description, history and demonstration photographs. Information on typography will be useful for both new freelancers and all other designers. By studying the differences between fonts, you can easily compare and categorize them.

Popular Guide to the Basics adaptive design. Author Aaron Gustafson describes in the book the history, features, and practical application of user-centered design. This tutorial shows you how to use CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to remove technological limitations that prevent users from accessing information.

An interesting collection of tips for designers, collected by Stephen Hay. The author of the book offers a different look at the process of creating design projects, making it more creative and consistent. Thanks to this approach, it is possible to do more advanced, meaningful and successfully implemented work, based on the ideas and wishes expressed by the customer.

A book on learning the basics of web design. The book describes the features of working with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other techniques when creating web resources. Written by Jennifer Robbins, this guide will be useful for both individuals interested in becoming design professionals and design educators. training course. After the theoretical material in each chapter there is a task designed to test knowledge.

Comprehensive information about design, presented by John Duckett in an accessible, interesting and non-trivial form. Within this manual presents the best web design techniques, provides theoretical data and clear practical examples using HTML and CSS. The book makes web design accessible to everyone by explaining technical terms in a language that any reader can understand.

A book of recommendations for responsive design. The author of the publication deliberately calls the design not adaptive, but flexible or responsive. The book explains the rules for using adaptive technologies when creating websites. The main mistakes that designers make in their work are also listed. By studying them, you can significantly increase the success of any project.

Books in Russian:

A legendary work guide for modern designers and specialists in the field digital products. The practical features of creating interfaces outlined in the publication will help increase the efficiency of interaction between designers and planners. The author devoted most of the book to analyzing errors and shortcomings that arise during design.

A book about creating user-friendly, and therefore successful, web resources. Contains recommendations from leading experts, description common mistakes in usability, loading speed of pages and site modules. Information about search optimization, menus, navigation, the use of multimedia, flash and proper design will be of interest to most people. appearance resources.

A book for beginners. It tells about the history of the formation of the language semantic markup, his distinctive features, specifications and supported technologies. With the help of the manual, you can learn to use JavaScript, work with multimedia, generate images on the server, use canvas and other technologies. The literature will be useful for everyone involved in creating interfaces and web pages.

A book that every JavaScript specialist should have in their arsenal. Readers are invited to comprehensive information, collected in this, already the sixth, edition of the guide, popular all over the world. In addition to purely theoretical information about JavaScript, by reading the book you can also get a lot useful information O practical application technologies when creating applications for Web 2.0. Essentially, this is a desktop reference book in which you can not only find the answer to any question, but also learn a lot practical information from the examples given in the publication.

The publication includes advice from typography professionals, contains the basics of computer layout, and provides the subtleties and rules of such activities. Separately included are additions and comments from domestic professionals in layout, design and printing. The manual is intended for a wide range of readers, and not just for established printers or web developers.

A guide to action for design professionals. This is the third edition revised and supplemented with 6 chapters. The book will interestingly tell you about the main aspects of design, highlight the problems and pitfalls of activity in the field of design. On the illustrated pages of this publication you can find answers to most eternal questions and find out where to find ideal customer, how to create a unique project without plagiarism, where to get ideas from and how to implement them in practice.

The problem of adaptive design is more relevant than ever, because mobile devices there are more and more of them on the network, and this niche is a tasty morsel for many projects. And in these conditions, web designers and developers have to take into account the variety of mobile device screens, and take into account all the subtleties of user interaction. With this book, you will learn to put into practice new technologies and techniques for creating responsive design using HTML5 and CSS3.

Tags: Add tags

Many young people want to connect their future profession with website development. Naturally, not everyone wants to be a programmer; some of them are quite happy with web design.

Learning this profession from scratch is not an easy task, because in addition to working skills, you need to be a creative person, at least understand a little code (know CSS and), be able to communicate with the customer in the same language, etc.

Before starting to familiarize yourself with the basics of the profession, A number of questions arise, and you have to look for answers to them yourself. This is not easy to do due to the lack of experience; materials from the Internet do not always become useful, and sometimes, on the contrary, they only add new questions, and not everyone has an experienced friend.

Let's figure out where to start learning web design, what knowledge you will need for creativity, where and in what order to get it, how much time to devote practical classes, how to get your first experience and order...and with a lot of related questions.

Contents:

Step one - find out why you want to do this

On the one hand, this is a simple question, because most people want to do web design because of the good pay.

Website building is a very profitable business, but an experienced, and most importantly, intelligent developer is not always easy to find during the day.

Although there are many cases when a person wants to do exactly this, but without knowledge of creation graphics engine It’s not easy to program a website.

And the third common reason why people become interested in web design is a craving for fine art.

AND this area can serve as an excellent way to put your talents into practice and derive financial benefits from it.

Important! For whatever purpose you get acquainted with web design, remember that both learning and work should be interesting, carried out with desire and bring pleasure, but not turn into a routine.

Due to the fact that a graphic artist is young profession, its exact definition does not yet exist, and many experts interpret the concept in their own way.

If earlier this person had to make the pages beautiful and pleasing to the eye, now it is necessary to have coding skills, understand marketing, and have an understanding of SEO promotion.

No unique solutions original ideas and an individual creative approach cannot solve the problem.

Website designer is a technical artist who works on the appearance and loading optimization of websites and web applications.

The tasks of these people include:

work on logical structure pages– so that everything is clear to any novice user, he can find what he is looking for the first time, all important links should be visible;
developing the most rational way to present content– the ability to interest the visitor, make him stay longer on the resource, leaf through the pages of the site;
graphic design– where what elements will be placed, what the buttons and inscriptions will be like after a click, how interaction with the client is carried out, how and what will change during the visitor’s work, zoom changes, etc.

So we briefly found out why people want to do the graphic part of websites.

For future programmers, it is enough to familiarize yourself with the basics of visual design of web resources, at least superficially master graphic editors and template layout.

Those who are eager to devote many years of their life to creating an interface for Internet pages and obtaining the appropriate profession will first have to work hard, this article is dedicated to them.

Stage two - choose the direction of web design in which you want to try yourself

Internet technologies are developing rapidly, and along with them, the requirements for developers are increasing. At first, a beautiful aesthetic and bright page was the task of the artist.

Nowadays they distinguish as many as seven directions in their design, and these are just the main ones.

Hard

A type of page design as old as website building itself, requiring no effort, is perfect for beginners.

The bottom line is that all resource elements are placed in virtual table cells with fixed sizes, which are set by the designer.

Such a page will look absolutely the same on all devices, regardless of platform and screen size.

And this does not mean that such a resource is backward, because an experienced developer using strict design can create a beautifully designed website, and adjusting something in this case takes a matter of minutes.

Flexible

Also tabular design, but the width of the virtual table cells is not strictly specified, but depends on the screen size (aspect ratio, resolution). Objects will try to fill the entire space of the cell, changing its size. main feature such a decision– increased convenience visual perception data due to dynamically changing display parameters. On such pages there are no empty spaces free of content.

The challenges of this design are:

there is no guarantee that on the old “square” and huge widescreen displays resource will display correctly, without stretching or shrinking the contents;
Not all browsers work well with the processing of so-called flexible cells, and Internet browsers created on different engines do this each in their own way;
it takes a lot of time to adjust and bring the project to perfection.

Combined

Combining the two previous methods: if the dimensions of the monitor (its aspect ratio) differ greatly from the parameters of the display that was used to create the site, a flexible design is used, otherwise both cells are used, depending on availability free space in them.

Text

Used when designing one-page resources and websites, which represent small businesses and companies in the global digital network. A feature of this design is the virtual absence graphic elements, which has a positive effect on page loading speed. Playing with fonts, text colors, and good text placement will help make your project attractive.

Printing

Most in demand in the development of corporate and marketing resources, where emotional content comes first. The designer must be as creative as possible and creatively choose pixel images to design the page.

Disadvantage print design is a decrease in site loading speed due to the presence, as a rule, of a large number of raster images, and even in high resolution.

Interface

Mostly experienced craftsmen turn to him. Their task is to satisfy all user requests, usually by minimizing program code, optimizing graphic elements and creating a convenient navigation system with the menu located at the top of the page. Such resources load quickly and are easy to work with both from a computer and from mobile devices

Dynamic

The most labor intensive complex options design of web pages. This type design lies in placement on the page dynamic content(animation, scripts, moving and changing elements, widescreen videos).

To implement your plans, you will have to work hard, and in order for the visitor to be satisfied and everything to work as intended, you need not only mastery of graphic editors, but also optimization skills; who wants to wait a long time for the appearance of some colorful three-dimensional button. But a well-designed resource always attracts with its beauty, originality and artistic solutions, regardless of the content.

Step three - find out which web design programs are trending right now

Before downloading books on this or that graphic editor, you need to clearly imagine the elements that are used in the graphic design of websites: shapes, colors, forms, the play of light and shadow, lines - these are the basic elements from which the entire composition is created.

Anyway, knowledge of cascading tables and hypertext markup are needed almost in the first place.

The designer will need knowledge in the field computer animation, popular, SEO, and maybe 3D modeling.

Attention! In addition to being difficult to learn, the application will also have to be purchased for full use, although for training purposes you can cheat by bypassing the program’s protection.

The latter is acquiring functionality that is in demand in dozens of areas, and the guys pay little attention to increasing the capabilities of web design.

Another thing is Sketch - designed for drawing graphical interfaces from scratch, has not a single extra element, is easier to learn and easily outperforms Photoshop in key indicators.

Be sure to choose the most convenient one that supports syntax and highlighting: , Sublime, Axure RP.

Stage four - study useful books for beginner web designers

The good thing about the Internet is that it allows you to acquire books for free that ten years ago you would have had to purchase or look for like-minded people.

With the popularization of the web designer profession, the number of books on the topic has increased. A book without a mentor or teacher - The best way Gain knowledge.

Learning web design from scratch should start with the literature where basic concepts, theory and small practical tasks:

1 Ethan Marcotte “Responsive Web Design” – practical guide for web designers, after mastering which a beginner will avoid hundreds of typical beginner mistakes and learn about the feasibility of creating mobile version site. It also describes how to layout pages that will be displayed equally on all devices.

2 Jakob Nielsen “Web Design” - the book contains a lot of guides on creating effective interfaces, correct location navigation elements and filling the resource with content.

3 Yu. Syrykh “Modern Web Design” is a reference book that describes the intricacies of working on the interface, starting from the stage of selecting content depending on the subject of the resource, and ending with testing and debugging the finished layout. It contains a lot of information not only on drawing the interface, but also on its optimization and content.

In this collection you can find books and guides that will help you understand the basics of web design or improve your skills if you already have experience in this field. The list includes 13 books in English and 7 in Russian (at the same time an excellent reason to improve your English).

Web Designer's Success Guide

A book for beginners and experienced professionals working with JavaScript web technology. The book talks about the basics of JavaScript and design patterns - their features and applications. Real practical examples of solving many problems that often arise when creating software products are provided.

A must-have book for those taking their first steps in learning HTML5. This guide, written by Mark Pilgrim, covers the history and features of the modern version of the markup language. The author reveals interesting facts and gives examples of using the canvas element, flash and other technologies in programming.

The HTML Dog resource has prepared information about HTML5 technology for readers. This tutorial is intended for people who don't have even basic knowledge of HTML or CSS. The online tutorial covers using tags, attributes, creating paragraphs, headings, lists, and other elements using HTML5. Practical examples will help you consolidate your knowledge.

A third published and very popular book about web development. The twelve chapters of the online book describe in detail the process of creating websites and outline the main mistakes that developers make. From a practical point of view, the author examines not only the features of constructing the structure of the site and individual pages, but also design, usability, creating interfaces and much more.

A book on typography. Data is provided about different fonts - their structure, functioning and visual design features of each individual project. Practical examples will help you learn how to choose the most advantageous font for designing visual content and correctly displaying data.

Font Guide. The book provides a detailed description of the 10 main groups of fonts with a brief description, history and demonstration photographs. Information on typography will be useful for both new freelancers and all other designers. By studying the differences between fonts, you can easily compare and categorize them.

A popular guide to the basics of responsive design. Author Aaron Gustafson describes in the book the history, features, and practical application of user-centered design. This tutorial shows you how to use CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to remove technological limitations that prevent users from accessing information.

A book on learning the basics of web design. The book describes the features of working with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other techniques when creating web resources. The guide, written by Jennifer Robbins, will be useful for both individuals interested in becoming design professionals and teachers of specialized training courses. After the theoretical material in each chapter there is a task designed to test knowledge.

Comprehensive information about design, presented by John Duckett in an accessible, interesting and non-trivial form. This manual introduces the best web design techniques, provides theoretical data and clear practical examples of using HTML and CSS. The book makes web design accessible to everyone by explaining technical terms in a language that any reader can understand.

Books in Russian:

The legendary workbook for modern designers and digital product specialists. The practical features of creating interfaces outlined in the publication will help increase the efficiency of interaction between designers and planners. The author devoted most of the book to analyzing errors and shortcomings that arise during design.

A book about creating user-friendly, and therefore successful, web resources. Contains recommendations from leading experts, descriptions of common usability errors, page loading speed and site modules. Of interest to most will be information about optimizing search, menus, navigation, using multimedia, flash and proper design of the appearance of resources.

A book for beginners. It tells about the history of the formation of semantic markup language, its distinctive features, specifications and supported technologies. With the help of the manual, you can learn to use JavaScript, work with multimedia, generate images on the server, use canvas and other technologies. The literature will be useful for everyone involved in creating interfaces and web pages.

A book that every JavaScript specialist should have in their arsenal. Readers are offered comprehensive information collected in this, already the sixth, edition of the guide, popular all over the world. In addition to purely theoretical data about JavaScript, by reading the book you can also get a lot of useful information about the practical application of the technology when creating applications for Web 2.0. Essentially, this is a desktop reference book in which you can not only find the answer to any question, but also glean a lot of practical information from the examples given in the publication.

A guide to action for design professionals. This is the third edition revised and supplemented with 6 chapters. The book will interestingly tell you about the main aspects of design, highlight the problems and pitfalls of activity in the field of design. On the illustrated pages of this publication you can find answers to most age-old questions and learn where to find the ideal customer, how to create a unique project without plagiarism, where to get ideas and how to implement them in practice.

The problem of adaptive design is more relevant than ever, because there are more and more mobile devices on the Internet, and this niche is a tasty morsel for many projects. And in these conditions, web designers and developers have to take into account the variety of mobile device screens, and take into account all the subtleties of user interaction. With this book, you will learn to put into practice new technologies and techniques for creating responsive design using HTML5 and CSS3.

Tags:

Web design
web design books

Add tags