10 things make you a better web designer

Author Stephen Bradley

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Like many http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7007.html "Webmasters, I did not go to school to study design and development." My degree is completely unrelated to the field. As a web design Developers I almost 100% self-taught, but not self-taught.

From the very beginning, in order to be able to come today, I developed a self-study course for myself. I think I want to share some of my ability to continue to improve my design and development

First, let me mention the common people's learning philosophy.

Two types of learning

One of the topics most talked about at the Small Business Forum is how important college education is. Debate ultimately comes down to theory (school) vs. Experience (work)

Most people typically support one side or the other, and I usually find it depending on their career path.

There are advantages to both arguments, but I think the best way to learn is to combine theory with experience.

theory

Learning theory is the learning experience of others. Design has a long history, there have been many years of research on design that you can learn from.

theory

Lay a solid foundation

* Show you how other people solve the problem

* Teach them why they want to do this

* For your in-depth study to indicate the direction

Most of the time I learn theory from books and take the time to think and analyze my work and the work of others.

Sadly, my many design blogs focus on how to design without explaining why it is so designed. You use cooking recipes instead of cooking. Of course, recipes are valuable, but if you know how to cook you can create recipes yourself instead of relying on others' recipes.

One of the reasons I focus on theory and rules is that I think design theory is largely for web services.

practice

Since the theory is learned from the experience of others, then practice is to learn from your own experience. Theory is usually taught under ideal conditions. The real world is often not very good.

practice

* From the real world experience you will gain a deeper understanding

* Allows you to solve the problem in less than ideal conditions

* Train what you do

* Having a theory that combines the experiences of others and your own experiences will bring you many unexpected things.

Something can not be done until you can really do it. You need to practice to improve your skills. Malcolm Gladwell suggested in "alien" that you need 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert on what you are doing.

Although there is no theoretical practice so there is no direction. No theory does not have a solid foundation, you need to spend 150,000 to 20,000 hours to achieve the same level of performance.

Become a better web designer tips

I want to leave you with more practical tips than I have given above. Here's what I did to improve my skills and understanding. They combine theory with practice, and are not arranged in any particular order.

Read, read, read more

This is my main method of obtaining theory. About three or four times a year I bought a bunch of piles of design related books in more respects from different places and read through them.

When choosing a book, I tend to pick one theme for the design and several other books with the same theme, and then mix a few other theme books.

For example, after the holiday I chose about 12 books, three for typography and two for visual language. The rest is a mix of design-related and irrelevant books.

Customize yourself for a school class

What you read and what you practice will make you more explicit about what you are learning.

Whenever I plan to start a new course, I lay a solid foundation by reading a few basic books. Then I start from here to learn more and find out more interesting, these are what I think the most important.

The above is how I choose books. The next few books I bought were about grid construction.

Work through books instead of just reading him

Not enough for reading You have to do it.

I can pretty much print every single line of code I've read about HTML, CSS, Javascript, php. The process of typing out these codes can be much more than just reading. Some of the books I have not typed are not part of my knowledge.

When you type the code you almost always make a mistake or find out what the author is wrong with. Finding solutions to these errors is an invaluable experience.

I always take notes when studying. Speaking out with a password or writing a code will let you know more about it.

Experiment with each new site

Try to apply what you have learned while you are reading and studying

You do not have to be crazy to see this, but adding an extra database to your design is required by the extra client. Tell yourself that you intend to make a special color or font, and then find ways to make it successful.

Try something new consciously or learn to write something you did not know before.

Knowledge in your head is only useful in practice and in design development problems in the display world.

Find a few tutors

Choose some designers, developers, marketers and more, and then you want to start following them closely as never before.

Listen to what they say, more importantly, what they do. Study archives of your favorite designers. Tap on your favorite developer's code. Watch how your favorite salespeople market themselves.

Facts speak louder than words, so watch out for what your mentors are doing. If you can keep in touch with them then get along with them better. However you do not need to observe how long they have been in contact with them.

Create some problems that you have to solve yourself

You can not always experiment on your client's website, nor should it.

You can practice on your own website. If you want to learn more about color theory, start putting colored graphics on a page. If you think of a better navigation bar, open a new file and start writing one.

Consider these exercises where you practice your new skills. Some may still practice, and some will be applied to your work immediately.

Research website

Whenever you log in to a website you like, stop and ask yourself why you like him. Is the reason for the design? Which aspect of the design? This site in the html and css is not using something you do not know.

Bookmark some notes for later use, then drill down and explore all aspects of design and the code behind the site.

When I first learned css, I kept checking the source code to figure out how the site made my favorite effect. No matter when I encountered my favorite website style I have to look at what font they are using, font size, spacing and so on.

Do not try to learn everything right away

Things you did not understand at first simply seemed to overwhelm you. Take a moment to learn the basics and lay the groundwork for what you need. Then one by one to explore.

Never tangle in things you do not know. Make the most of your time today, which one you can look back after six months or a year? How much have you learned?

Remember to develop a learning process. A typical bachelor's degree to study for 4 years. Master's degree to be studying for 2 to 3 years. Post-bachelor degree to last longer. No reason to expect you to know everything within a month or two. Try to study one or two things for a while.

Find inspiration

Good designers rely on imitation, great color designers rely on plagiarism

- Pablo Picasso, presumably saying so

Vincent van Gogh think he is a link chain. He subtracts something from his master work before, adds something of his own, and then does the same after delivering his work to him.

You do not need the repetitive creation that is not necessary. Use your predecessors' creations and the things around you to replace the hard ones for inspiration. Use those inspiration as a starting point for your study.

Develop your powers of observation and learn everything in the design you happen to see. Make yourself attracted to the magic of new technology.

Repeat the above steps

Learning has no end. No matter what your current skills are, you can always improve.

Insist on doing the above things. Now back to basics, you have a clear idea of ​​what is beyond what you have learned. Keep digging deeper into your favorite aspects of your design development.

Never stop practicing and practicing.

to sum up

No matter what level of technology you have as a design developer, there will always be more and more things to learn. Never stop learning and improve your skills.

Some are born by theory, others tend to practice. Both are important. Each has its own advantages, both complement each other. You will learn more from a combination of both than just focusing on a single aspect.

We sometimes feel the peak or enthusiasm has subsided.

When I encountered such a situation, I would review the ones I listed and immediately recharge myself. Whenever I picked up a new book or set myself a problem to solve, I immediately became enthusiastic.

I hope you can absorb the above know-how in your study. It is not necessary to do everything that I have done, though all these things have helped me.

Source: http://article.yeeyan.org/view/202617/175321