Good Dog Creative

We all had to start from somewhere and for some of us that somewhere was a completely blank slate. For a host of reasons many people deciding to make web design their career don’t go to school for that particular field of study. In my case, I was a visual art major and spent my college life in classical art classes such as painting and drawing. After school I found myself in my first job as a graphic designer which, through a few employment changes and some dumb luck, ended up in a web design position. Luckily for me and for others like me, there is a plethora of online learning resources for those wanting to start out in web design and front-end development.

Here are some of the best places on the web for newcomers that I used to learn the basic skills I would need to succeed as a web designer.

1. w3schools.com

The granddaddy of them all and what I consider to be the absolute best resource for beginners. W3schools.com offers tutorials on everything from HTML all the way to server scripting and even tutorials for multimedia applications like Adobe Flash. My favorite part about w3schools.com is that you have the option of taking a short quiz at the end of the tutorial so you can see what you still need to work on and learn.

2. About.com’s section on webdesign

About.com has been around a long time and they have an absolutely huge section on web design. In the site’s “Learn HTML CSS XML” section you can find tutorials, references, tag libraries and even articles reviewing the many editing programs you can use to write your HTML. About.com also gives you overviews and tutorials for CSS and XML in the learning section.

3. HTML Goodies

HTML Goodies is a part of the internet.com network of sites and contains mountains of information. Some of the info and tutorials they offer can be pretty daunting for the beginning designer/developer but they do have a very good HTML primer to get you started and through the basics in a weeks time. This is one of those sites that you’ll continue to return to well into your career for tips, tricks and information.

4. Sitepoint’s Learn HTML and CSS: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide

An excerpt from the book Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, 2nd edition by Ian Lloyd, this is a long read but worth it for those just starting out. There is a lot of good information in this article and it can give the beginner a good idea of what they’re getting themselves into without having to spend the money on the book itself. That being said, I do recommend this book and think its a worthwhile purchase if you decide to continue building websites.

5. HTML Dog

HTML Dog focuses on just HTML, CSS and web standards. The site offers tutorials, references, articles and also offer’s a book by the site author that you can purchase. Overall, a great site that is perfectly geared for the web designer/developer that is just getting his or her bearings on what all of these crazy acronyms even mean.

6. Web Design from Scratch

Web Design from Scratch offers a series of articles and tutorials on their site that gives you a basic overview of the design process, the business of the web, HTML/CSS tutorials and even some JavaScript. A decent read and good place to get some basic information not just on the coding side of the process but also about designing for the web.

7. CSS Basics

CSS Basics is set up like a book containing 18 chapters and it walks you through the very basics of CSS development describing everything from basic syntax to the use of pseudo elements. The site also gives you the option of downloading all of the chapters or printing them so you can reference them offline.

8. CSS Dog

CSS Dog offers two sections, one for beginners and one for more advanced users. They have a very useful reference section with quick guides and a CSS color reference as well as a good sized resources page with links to many more helpful sites and code validators.

9. CSSeasy.com

One of the best ways that I found to learn CSS was just to do it. CSSeasy.com gives you the CSS for many basic fixed and fluid layouts which you can view source, save and experiment with to really work out what you can do with CSS.

10. W3C – World Wide Web Consortium

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the W3C.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, W3C’s mission is to lead the Web to its full potential. Contact W3C for more information.

Though sometimes overly technical and hard to sift through, almost everything you need to know can be found on the W3C’s site and their HTML/CSS section is an absolute wealth of information.

Something Missing?

What did I leave out? I know there are many other helpful sites out there so if I didn’t list your favorite or you’ve found a new one that you think could help someone out please link to them in the comments.