Almost 50% of website visitors consider web design the most crucial factor of a website’s credibility. As having a website has become essential for every small, medium, and large business, the demand for web designers is soaring.

The best part is that you don’t need any specialized degree or experience to become a web designer. Here is a step-by-step guide to becoming a full-time web designer, even if you know nothing about it.

How to Learn Web Design

Is It Difficult to Learn Website Design?

Learning web designing isn’t hard, but it requires commitment and perseverance. There are a lot of programming languages, frameworks, and technologies involved in web designing. The broader your skills and knowledge are, the more successful you’ll become.

Furthermore, the web development space is changing, with new technologies and trends emerging every year. The learning is ongoing. As a web designer, you need to keep learning and mastering new skills to stay competitive.

How to Become a Web Designer?

A web designer needs to have both technical proficiency and artistic creativity to create designs and experiences users love. If you feel you can develop both technical and artistic capabilities, web design might be the ideal field for you.

If you’re wondering how to start a web design company, here is a five-step process to get started.

Learn the Theoretical Aspects of Web Design

Web designing is an extension of computer engineering. Even though you don’t need a bachelor’s degree in computer science to be a web designer, you’ll need the basic theoretical knowledge of what web design is, where it is used, and how it works. Several concepts, such as UX design and web development, are closely associated with web design, and it’s essential to have at least basic information about them.

Learn Web Design Tools and Technologies

Once you gain fundamental knowledge about web designing, you’ll need to develop practical web design skills. Like most computer science fields, web designing is code-focused and tool-focused.

Talking about coding first, programming skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are a prerequisite. You can further expand your skill set by learning Python, PHP, SQL, and .NET. Next, you need to learn CMS and web design tools.

Practice Your Skills

Once you have learned coding and web design tools, you need to practice your skills. There are two ways to practice:

Work on Your Own Projects:

Most web design tools have a free version. You can create your own website and start creating designs to practice your skills.

Work for Free:

You can volunteer to work for small businesses or nonprofits for free. This way, you can practice your skills and gain experience.

Develop a Portfolio

Working for free is an excellent way to build a portfolio for new web designers. Tools like Behance, Fabrik, and Dunked allow you to create a portfolio of your past work and share it with your clients.

Apply for Jobs and Find Clients

After practicing your skills and developing a portfolio, you can start applying for jobs. New web designers can choose between two career paths:

Employed Web Designer:

Find a regular job in a company. The average salary for a web designer in the US is $52,292/year.

Freelance Web Designer:

If you don’t want a 9-5 job, you can become a freelancer and find clients online. Freelance web designers typically charge $25-60 per hour. If your freelance business takes off, you can turn it into an agency business.

Can I Learn Web Design on My Own?

Yes, you can. You can find many resources – both free and paid – on the internet to learn web designing. There are several blog posts and YouTube videos that can teach you web design from scratch.

If you are willing to invest a nominal amount in learning, you can purchase paid courses. Websites like Coursera, eDX, Udemy, and Skillshare have various courses on HTML and CSS that will help you in learning web design.

What Do I Need to Learn to Be a Web Designer?

Here is a quick overview of all the programming languages and tools you need to learn to become a web designer.

Hard Skills

  • HTML
  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • JavaScript
  • Content management systems
  • Web and graphic design tools
  • User experience design and user interface design
  • Responsive design
  • Web graphic design
  • Web development (optional)
  • Online marketing (optional)
  • Color theory

Soft Skills

  • Communication skills
  • Creativity and critical thinking skills
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Time management and meeting deadlines

Tools

There are many tools that can help you enhance your work quality and help you become a better web designer. Some tools every web designer should have are:

  • Website builders, like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace
  • InVision Studio
  • Photoshop
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Sketch
  • Google Web Designer
  • Project management and collaboration tools, like ProofHub and Kissflow

Where Can I Learn Web Designing?

If you’re wondering how to learn web design, there are two key two ways to get started. The first way is to join an institute or course and learn from an instructor. The second way is to learn by yourself by reading books and enrolling in self-paced courses.

Can I Learn Web Designing Online?

Yes, you can. In this era of the internet, all the information is available online. Various free online resources, such as blog posts, free videos, forums, and paid courses, are available that can help you learn web designing.

How Can I Learn Web Design for Free?

Learning web designing for free is entirely possible. Numerous web designers offer free knowledge to help you boost your skills and kickstart your career. YouTube is a huge information library. By searching for a “free web design course,” you’ll come across various courses on YouTube and other platforms.

Here are five free web design courses to help you get started:

  • Webmaking 101 by P2PU (get course)
  • Diploma in Web Design by Alison Courses (get course)
  • HTML, CSS, and Javascript for Web Developers by Coursera (get course)
  • Web Developer Course HTML CSS JavaScript Learn Web Design (get course)
  • Web Design for Web Developers: Build Beautiful Websites (get course)

Best Online Web Design Courses (Paid Ones)

While you can gain a lot of knowledge from free courses and resources, paid courses have additional benefits. They are comprehensive and detailed and have a lot of content, examples, exercises, and assignments to help you develop your skills. Instructors keep updating paid courses with new modules to ensure their students don’t miss out on any important details.

So, free courses can be a good starting point, but if you are serious about web design and build a career out of it, paid courses can offer the needed skills and knowledge. That said, here are the best paid web design courses available on the internet:

  • Web Design for Beginners: Real World Coding in HTML & CSS by Udemy (get course)
  • Web Design Track by Treehouse (get course)
  • Front End Development Course by Skillcrush (get course)
  • Responsive Web Design for Beginners by Envato Tuts+ (get course)
  • Web Design for Everybody: Basics of Web Development & Coding Specialization by Coursera (get course)

Best Online Web Design Courses (Paid Ones)

While you can gain a lot of knowledge from free courses and resources, paid courses have additional benefits. They are comprehensive and detailed and have a lot of content, examples, exercises, and assignments to help you develop your skills. Instructors keep updating paid courses with new modules to ensure their students don’t miss out on any important details.

So, free courses can be a good starting point, but if you are serious about web design and build a career out of it, paid courses can offer the needed skills and knowledge. That said, here are the best paid web design courses available on the internet:

What Is the Best Way to Learn Web Design?

So far, you have received various resources to learn web design. However, if you want to become an expert web designer and earn a full-time income, you’ll need to follow the right process. Here is a step-by-step process to becoming an expert web developer.

1. Learn About Visual Design

First, you need to learn the basics of visual design. These include key design elements, including:

  • Lines: Learn the basics of lines and how they help in creating a balanced layout
  • Shapes: Three basic shapes – squares, rectangles, and circles, along with the message they give
  • Textures: Different texture types, such as paperlike backgrounds and colorful wisps, and the emotions they elicit
  • Colors: Complementary colors, contrasting colors, and color psychology
  • Grids: Bringing order to design elements and giving shape to your page

2. Get the Basic Understanding of UX

The user experience (UX) of a website is a key determinant of its quality. UX design focuses on providing a pleasant experience to website visitors. It includes every aspect that could impact a user’s experience, such as:

  • Page load time
  • Ease of navigation
  • Images and visuals
  • Responsiveness
  • Layout and white space
  • Typography and content

3. Understand the Basics of Creating Layouts

Let’s talk more about layouts, as they are a key aspect of UX design. Using design patterns makes a website look more structured, planned, and professional. If your website doesn’t follow a layout, the visitors may lose direction.

Two popular web layout patterns are:

  • F Pattern: The F pattern includes more text and minimal visuals. The aim is to provide maximum readable information to the readers. News publications and blogs generally use the F pattern.
  • Z Pattern: The Z pattern has minimal words, a lot of visuals, and a significant amount of white space. The idea is to make the navigation user-friendly. This layout works best for SaaS websites and agency businesses that want their visitors to take a particular action.

4. Learn About UI Design

It’s normal for new web designers to confuse user experience (UX) with user interface (UI). While UX is the interaction your users have with your website, UI comprises the specific elements they interact with. All the components on a website, including sign-up forms, calls to action, and images, are a part of the UI.

A simple and intuitive UI makes a website easy to use and navigate, resulting in superior customer experiences. New web designers must familiarize themselves with the best UI practices and how it impacts the UX.

5. Get Acquainted with Typography

Choosing the right fonts is another crucial aspect of website designing. Just like colors, fonts can elicit emotions. Fonts also impact readability by making the web content legible. Lastly, fonts add an aesthetic appeal to your web design.

Three typographic concepts web designers must know about are:

  • Serif: The original typography dating back to print
  • Sans Serif: A modern-day variant of Serif, mostly seen in digital content
  • Display: Sophisticated letterforms to grab readers’ attention

6. Get Proficient in HTML

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) defines the structure of a webpage, including all the content on it. Everything from text, images, font size/style, navigation, etc., is denoted using HTML. Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress have made web development easier, and you don’t need to be an HTML expert to be a web designer. However, you must have a working knowledge of HTML.

7. Gain Expertise in CSS

If HTML helps you design the structure of a webpage, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) help you style your webpage using numerous styling features. CSS is usually the most important aspect of web design as it gives your site a unique look and makes it stand out from the crowd.

High-level knowledge of CSS is essential to become a web designer, as it enables you to create unique designs and experiences for users.

8. Harness Your Knowledge to Build Something

Thanks to the internet, you can absorb a lot of knowledge about web designing. But the only way to become and improve as a web designer is by putting that knowledge into action. Once you have gained the basic knowledge, start working on small projects. You can build a website or play around with the tools mentioned earlier in this content.

Conclusion

Web design and development is one of the most lucrative careers in 2021, as the need for an impactful online presence continues to increase among brands. Though becoming a skilled and in-demand web designer requires practice and experience, getting started as a web designer is easy.

About the Author: Dave Sweeney

Dave is an Emmy-Award® winning web designer/developer and has worked in the digital media industry in both newspaper and broadcast television since 1999. He has also worked as an Art Director for a medium-sized advertising agency in the South Florida market and TheeDigital's customers' are benefiting from his talent these days.

Tell Us What You Think About Learning Web Design