furthering a web design education

PixelPusher · 07-02-2009, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamienDarwick

You have a nice page there smurk03. I pretty much learned everything by the skin o my teeth method. LOL Just threw myself into various things and learned them as I could. For me I find that its extremely nice to have knowledge of many different parts of design & the various scripts that are used on web pages these days. You do have to know how to hand code php to run vbulletin or another php script that you find on the web today.

Some helpful hints & tips for you:

1. Be sure that you are well versed in html & css at least. Hand coding these is not a must but extremely helpful when working with other php scripts.

2. Having good graphic skills is a great things that will be a plus for you. Work to hone them and make them better. Try new things in adobe photoshop (I'm guessing you use that application).

3. Learn other scripts. This is extremely helpful because many designer overlook these. Scripts are more popular these days than a straight forward web design site. Most people are running vbulletin, coppermine, Joomla, Drupal etc than they are using basic design on their web sites. There are tons of free scripts out there that you should download, install to your web server and play around with. Get a "feel" for them. Ones I suggest are, Joomla, Coppermine, Gallery2, SMF, phpBB, MKPortal, Drupal, Mambo, PHPNuke, MyBB, & Wordpress for starters. Those are free scripts that do not require any money to download, install & use them. For paid for scripts that are popular I suggest you get acquainted with vBulletin, & Invision Power Board. There are other paid for scripts out there, when you run across them try them out and gain some knowledge about them.

4. Don't be afraid to post on forums that offer areas for members to post about their web design skills trying to gain freelance jobs. A lot of these can and will lead to jobs for you. The more places you put your link the better. Be sure to always follow specific forum rules on posting your business ads though, some are not as friendly as others.

5. Don't be afraid to answer posts looking for freelancers. The worst they can do is not answer your PM or post.

That's all I can think of at the moment. You do have a nice site and have some nice graphics. Good luck to you!

Whats up Damien, (its graphicsAZ). Sarah, this is some great advice.

arminium · 07-02-2009, 11:14 PM

Pixel, agree with you and what your say what you saying

A Good way to get into or expand your php knowledge is start building your own CMS's, you'll be practicing with mysql as well as php and html and css to style,

If you google "CMS PHP TUTORIAL " you'll come up with tones

for those that don't want to spend big buck on photoshop, try GIMP just google it. plenty of brushes and add ins, and they all free.

Unitll recently i was always in photoshop, but i have found that GIMP is actually stronger and for the most part better than photoshop, there is a few things im not fond of but they are out weighed by the better and its 100% free

other programs open source that Rival are

OpenOffice substitute for MS office, they have a Rival for each of the apps You most likely use like Word, excel, powerpoint and access, etc etc

MS Publisher equivalent is Scribus , much stronger and output print media quality

Illustrator Equivalent is Inkscape

If you start using OpenSource programs commercially nd you can afford it, remember to give back by making a donation

07-02-2009, 11:14 PM	#12 (permalink)
arminium New Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 22	knowledge is great Pixel, agree with you and what your say what you saying A Good way to get into or expand your php knowledge is start building your own CMS's, you'll be practicing with mysql as well as php and html and css to style, If you google "CMS PHP TUTORIAL " you'll come up with tones for those that don't want to spend big buck on photoshop, try GIMP just google it. plenty of brushes and add ins, and they all free. Unitll recently i was always in photoshop, but i have found that GIMP is actually stronger and for the most part better than photoshop, there is a few things im not fond of but they are out weighed by the better and its 100% free other programs open source that Rival are OpenOffice substitute for MS office, they have a Rival for each of the apps You most likely use like Word, excel, powerpoint and access, etc etc MS Publisher equivalent is Scribus , much stronger and output print media quality Illustrator Equivalent is Inkscape If you start using OpenSource programs commercially nd you can afford it, remember to give back by making a donation __________________ Weird Things come in normal packages Dogg-webdesign Free-sunshine-coast practical-webdesign

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