So, you want to be a web designer?
If you’re not sure where to begin, we’ve got you covered. The digital age has made it possible for everyone around the world to learn and develop their skills without any geographical barrier. Even so, the volume of information available can be confusing and overwhelming, which is where we come in.
First, what is web design, and why is it in so much demand?
Remember when we said it’s the digital age a few lines ago? That effectively means that brands and companies need a smooth, useful, and informative website to communicate with their customers today.
Web design is when you design a website — this includes microcopy, layouts, colours, illustrations, images, animations, element placement, and more. In order to make the website functional and aesthetic, the web design needs to comply with UI UX requirements. A pretty website alone doesn’t work very well.
When it comes to web design, it’s not essential to have a college or university qualification. Hands-on experience designing websites is far more useful since the industry is extremely dynamic. Creating a portfolio of diverse, buttery smooth website designs that highlight the intersection between design and UI UX is the best way to attract clients.
Today, every business, big or small, has a web presence. A well-designed website is the key to attracting, acquiring, and retaining customers. That’s why, we’ve curated a list that includes 5 of the best web design courses for beginners that you can start exploring right now!
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1. Web Design for Everybody: Basics for Web Development & Coding, University of Michigan, Coursera
Offered by the University of Michigan on Coursera, beginners to web design can pick up valuable CSS and responsive design skills, among others, during this course. In this specialization course, students will be able to write syntactically correct HTML5 and CSS3 and create interactive web designs with JavaScript.
The course takes approximately six months to complete at a pace of 3 hours per week and will offer a comprehensive understanding of web design and development basics. The benefit of an at-your-own-pace course like this is that it allows students to balance work and other responsibilities along with this course.
2. Web Design for Beginners | FREE COURSE – Envato Tuts+
If you're looking for an introduction to the fundamentals of web design, this free beginners course from Envato Tuts+ is a brilliant entry point. It features over 5 hours of lessons, split across over 30 lessons, and delivered by web design instructor Adi Purdila who covers everything from color, typography, and spacing, to sizing, imagery, and responsive web design.
By taking the course, you'll learn about all the elements you can use to design a web page–think headers, buttons, image galleries, and contact forms, and Adi will address the kinds of questions that every novice has when they start out. With over half a million views on YouTube alone, you'll be in good company if you begin your web design journey with this video.
3. Ultimate Web Design Course, Webflow University
One of the most popular web design courses on the internet, Webflow University’s course takes students through HTML and CSS basics across 100+ videos spanning five hours. The course is divided into sections exploring web structure, elements, buttons & links, typography, media, components, styling basics, layout basics, flexbox and grid, advanced layouts, styling typography, backgrounds, 3D styles, responsive design, CMS & dynamic content, and more.
A thorough introduction to web design, this course is targeted towards beginners and intermediate learners. There’s also a section where the course takes you through some useful SEO basics, including Google Analytics, paid vs. organic search, etc.
4. Web Design for Beginners: Real World Coding in HTML & CSS, Brad Schiff, Udemy
Udemy’s most popular course on web design, this course by Brad Schiff has over 50 thousand students and a strong 4.6 rating (from over 15,000 reviews). Split into 22 sections, the course has 71 videos that will take a student almost 11 hours to finish.
At the end of this course, the student will have a clear understanding of HTML & CSS basics, including the ability to add animations and effects with CSS3. Like most of the other courses in this list, students will also learn how to create websites with responsive design, optimizing them for different device sizes and screen resolutions.
5. Human-Centered Design: Building and Testing Prototypes, Open HPI
For those who have the basics of web design down but want to focus on picking up human-centered design skills, this is the perfect course. A self-paced course, it teaches students how to build simple and effective prototypes, prepare testing scenarios, and gain feedback from users.
Prototyping, planning, testing real scenarios are all part of the 4-week course, which over 5,000 students have signed up for. With a focus on web design led by design thinking, this course can help students create designs that employ UI UX techniques to increase conversion.
6. Web design track, Treehouse
Focusing on building a foundation with basic HTML and CSS skills, this 40-hour course from Treehouse is a good choice for those looking to cover a lot of ground in a short but detailed course. You’ll learn how to a mobile-first layout along with skills like typography selection and layout skills, Bootstrap 4 basics, browser prototypes, SVG basics, CSS animations, Sass basics, and more.
These five courses offer you a varied selection of web design fundamentals — depending on the time and resources you have available, you can begin learning with the course that appeals the most to you.
It’s important to remember that courses like these will help you master the basics but understanding what makes a website work will come through experience.
All the very best on your web design journey!
Check out our blog for more design and development tips: www.ruttl.com/blog
Once you design and build your first website, have someone review it on ruttl and see how easy it can be to review website projects without any coding knowledge.
Try it out here: www.ruttl.com
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