Getting Started in Web Design

Web designers will either use Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks for creating their design comps and then slicing out its images. Photoshop is the industry standard and has a strong following. Fireworks (I find) is more intuitive and easier to use; and for simple comps, it can do the job quicker (at least for me).

Photoshop guru Colin Smith shows you in this book step-by-step on how to create a techlike web interface from the beginning using Photoshop. At the time of this writing, this book got a perfect 5 stars rating out of 9 reviews at amazon. It covers get web hosting, creating the graphics, coding the html, creating rollover effects, and setting up PayPal.

He also makes training videos, if you rather watch than read. He site is PhotoshopCafe and here are some of the realistic looking work that he has done in Photoshop.

Janee has some decent tutorials on learning the mechanics of using Photoshop.

One of the best tutorials I have seen on Photoshop is Bert Monroy's "underwater scene" free sample tutorial.

For Fireworks, Macromedia has a Graphic Design Tutorial.

Or learn to build a web interface in Fireworks with this tutorial.

For learning design concepts, this book is a short and concise read that summarizes quickly the basic design concepts. I read it when I first got into design and it was certainly time well spent.

I also like to “watch designers at work” via the forums at Design Outpost where you see a variety of designs bidding for a client’s job and see what clients like and don’t like about each design.

Quick Links