

Ask HN: Share your best sources for learning web design - bira

Hello Hacker News people, what's your favourite sources for web design learning material?<p>For any level of expertise, beginner to hero.<p>Free and paid(they have to be good though).<p>Any answer is appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.
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ISeemToBeAVerb
In my mind, design is one of those things that is really best learned through
practice and observation. While there are certainly fundamental principles to
design, there really isn't a technology of design in the sense that you can
teach it in a manner that always translates to successful execution. In other
words, you can learn the recipe but still botch the meal. Not because you
don't understand the principles, but because you lack the instincts (built
through practice and observation) to understand how to communicate through
design.

The best method I've found for learning design (aside from actually doing it)
is to take note of designs that strike you and really dig into them. Ask
yourself why the designer might have made the choices he did. How has the
designer used line, shape, texture, color and space to achieve a sense of
balance and unity (or their opposites). What has the designer chosen to
emphasize? Why? Take notice of all the small and subtle elements that
contribute to the overall feel of the design.

As for the technical side, well that stuff isn't too hard. There is an
abundance of material covering CSS, HTML and Javascript. Tutsplus has some
excellent free courses and tutorials. As do the sites that sebphfx mentions.

Just remember not to confuse development with design. Knowing CSS and
Javascript doesn't make you any more of a designer than my 3 year old nephew.
If you want to make beautiful stuff, you gotta keep practicing and observing.

Best of luck, take care.

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adamnemecek
I always found nettuts (net.tutsplus.com, note that there are multiple
sections) pretty useful.

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sebphfx
CSS-Tricks for css tricks! Smashing Magazine for Design in General. Abduzeedo
for Photoshop-Illustrator tutorials. Codrops for cool jquery ideas.
<http://www.awwwards.com/> to get ideas and be inspired. Stack Overflow for
technical questions. and so many more that I can't name them all. I also just
discovered this site for HTML5 resources: <http://html5bookmarks.com/>

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sebandr
This is great - thanks much!

