Stuck on the Web…
What do they want to see WEBSITES – When do they want it NOW!
A website is about as crucial to graphic designers as his/her business card. Actually they play hand in hand as possibly the easiest and most affective way for a client to really get a feel for who you are as a designer. So what should I do if web design and coding just doesn’t seem to be something I can grasp? How can I approach this better? What should I look for, what can i do, so that I can sell myself as effectively and efficiently as other graphic designers.
I’m a fish out of water when it comes to web coding and layout. I dive into it and get lost from the start. I can’t breathe, and I’m sick of these drag and drop blah blah blah.something.something.com sites that are so generic. So what do I do? I research and I read, and trial after trial there is always something I fail to see or get. Things don’t look right, and I scrap it all cause its just garbage. Somewhere my DIV tags are off, or it looks fine to me but horrible on the other side of town. I screw up the css stylesheet attributes. I forget to set up the image with the right save folder. So either my ADHD is way out of wack and this is just an impossible task, or i’m missing something. I as if I understand as much as a 8th grader on myspace when it comes to coding, so what to do?
I guess I am just wondering if I’m the only fish in this swamp of confusion and loss. Is there others out there with the same issues? Do you have any suggestions or ideas? Anyone found a niche that works, or software better then another (Dream weaver vs. Go Live)?
Normally I wouldn’t just fold, but in this area it seems like I’m running out of chips not learning it in a way that works for me.
Persistence is part of my nature, but unlike the graphic aspect that I seem to soak like a sponge; I seem to not be able to with Web Coding and Layout.
Lost In Webs Of Translation……
Author Info: Alan M Drake
What sadly started as wanting a cool profile picture on Myspace. Soon lead me on a journey to really wanting to do more. My obsession for learning, art, and all things Mac helped influence this decision. So I read book after book, and one tutorial after another. 4 years later and I still have a lot to learn but refuse to stop here.
I'm always looking to pick someones brain over a plate of sushi, or pizza. So if your hungry and bored let me know!
Somethings you don't know:
I'm a vegetarian, I like cinema and theater, and I love a good dirty martini (007 style shaken not stirred).
Most nights I can be found at the Schererville Round The Clock either playing psychological chess with random strangers, or sitting quietly in a booth by myself. ( if your bored come up and visit )
"Until you can ignore your circumstances and just do what you promised - You'll always be controlled by the world" - Chuck Palahniuk
I wonder if you have any hair left. You can do what I do and find the best coder on the planet and lock him in your basement and don’t tell anyone about him. Building a relationship with someone who’s skills you (want) need is essential in this biz. You have to come to the realization that you can’t do it all. And honestly your not supposed to. If you are really good a design then that’s ok, be good a design. Leave the rocket science to the scientist. Once you develop that relationship then you can learn the ins and outs, what to do or not to do on the design end of things, and just be happy with that.
It’s okay Joe I own a lot of wigs, and my diet contains mounds of B12. Thanks for the helpful advice. I guess my time should have been used researching the works of bounty hunters, and not that of “Web Design by Osmosis.” From now on I guess I will just have a room for rent on craigslist for all front-end developers.
I have had those same kinds of issues with learning certain business things (taxes and forms and the like) and 3d programming (dear lord they make my brain hurt). I’m still learning them myself because I can’t afford to hire someone for it. In your case, it could work much better as a partnership.
I do agree with Joseph too. Not everything is for everyone (personality-wise), and it’s up to you whether it’s worth learning or not. There is never a problem with working with someone who knows the stuff, and is even encouraged sometimes (all the time in my opinion).
If you do want to learn it for sure, there are plenty of people to help. And I know plenty of resources to help as well (w3schools.com is a good one). As for program choice, if you want to learn HTML I would avoid things like Dreamweaver. Go for a good ol’ fashion text editor. Textmate is my editor of choice; it’s Mac-only and about $60. Otherwise, Komodo Edit is a good choice as well. It’s cross-platform and free.
Hi Alan-
First, I really wish you had the chance to catch my speech at INsight 2009, as it covered many of the topics you’re talking about.
You can however, catch it on the INsight website, there’s an audio link on the front page, then a link to my speech. It goes over the basic details of helping designers establish how much web work they really want to do in their careers. I hope this helps you.
http://www.insightdesignconference.com
From what I am hearing, you’re not really interested in code – and that’s okay. All too often our industry likes to push designers to feel like if they don’t do web work, they are worthless. It’s such a horrible mentality. I am a firm believer in do what you’re good at and enjoy.
I myself am a rare breed that is educated in graphic design, but I am also educated in web design and front end development. I think that over time, you’ll be able to decide which you are, or possibly evolve into more!
I think that Joe made a great point, if you’re interests are in design and not web, find a good web designer / developer and work with them. You might be able to barter, or work out some deals at the same time. Just realize that not everyone is interested in those types of deals.
Let us know if you have more questions Alan!
AG
Not sure how I missed yours actually, I seemed to have listened to the rest of them. In my thirst for knowledge your speech was regrettably overlooked. I did however catch myself up, and thank you for pointing me towards it.
I think I’m not interested in code the way you explained it in your talk, its not that I don’t like it or that I hate it. To me code is like Canada, I’ve visited a few times and I don’t mind Canada at all. However I just don’t live there, nor do I need to.
So I guess for now, I will do what I like and keep my ears open for a web guy/gal that needs a place to stay. Ha ha…
Alan,
You mention these drag and drop options that are not working for you. Not sure if you are talking about websites or programs, but there are tons of websites out there to advertise your ‘portfolio’ with very minimal to zero coding experience.
Just a couple:
http://www.krop.com/
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.deviantart.com/
If these sites are not your cup of tea, go with the recommendations above. Partner up with someone, barter your artistic skills for their technical skills and prosper. You never know where a good partnership can lead. Some of the best businesses out there started just like that.
Good luck.
Alan the worst thing I think you can do in this situation is to let yourself get too worked up over this. It has just in the past year that I have dived into the world of css and its many subtle and powerful options. In hopes of helping I will just share with you what I did to advance my knowledge in this area. What I have discovered is to think of css as a placement tool. To get a grasp of this concept I spent a lot of time at http://960.gs/. This is a very nice website that helps you create grid systems for certain sizes and also define the number of columns you want in this grid system. Here is what I did on this site. I would go to http://www.spry-soft.com/grids/grid/?column_width=60&column_amount=12&gutter_width=20 in Firefox with the Web Developer Toolbar installed and I just sat and looked at the page source and the css file and just studied how each little column was used. This took me days to truly understand so give yourself some time. I still look at this sometimes to get a nice refresher on how it’s used. It is also a great resource when building a page from scratch and you know the size you want. You can get a pre-made css for you. The next layer of css I looked to tackle was the style aspect. In the css you can define the size, color and all that jazz, of your different fonts. The way I got comfortable with this was going to already made sites and I used the CSS – View Style Information in the Web Developer Toolbar in Firefox. You can see how the boxes are laid out but also the different options for the fonts. You can see in the source how it calls different classes or divs and then you can match that to the css and how it transforms your font. Again this took a while to really get a feel for but it does start to click once you see it in use like this. I still have to Bing/Google some options now and again, but this is a great start for you. If you have done all this then I am sorry you read all this for nothing. I am just trying to help out. My last suggestion would be to maybe start using WordPress instead of the generic programs you mention earlier. The themes are bountiful and very easily modifiable. You can build each page as you wish and set the menu to go to the pages as you wish. You don’t have to use the blog system that WordPress was initially set up for. I hope this can help you in your future endeavors.