hey abzu

[zim]

have you made any decent money from website design? i'm just curious if it's something that can actually make a good profit for oneself. i've always been interested in html, ect.

[Abzu]

I haven't, no. When companies are tightening their belts, they tend to turn to services like SquareSpace. Im looking to get out of web design as a profession and move into general graphic design. There's more money there.



As a hobby, though, web design is great. I, and this is the geek in me wholly, love hand-coding XHTML and CSS, developing mock ups, tinkering with color schemes and images, etc. I'll always do it, just not often professionally.

[Abzu]

Full of win: http://www.w3schools.com/



When you settle on an image editor, I can probably find decent tutorials and learning guides for that as well. Most people use Adobe Photoshop, but I prefer Macromedia Fireworks (ver 8, before Adobe bought Macromedia and ruined Fireworks with CS3 and CS4). Some people even prefer The GIMP. I find Fireworks has the best balance between vectors and raster images, as well as the integration between the two.

[zim]

that's cool, i always found fun editing little bits and pieces of HTML code when i could figure it out. i plan on learning all of it someday.



and with graphic design do you mean things like website logos, banners, layouts, ect? i've thought about going into a career in some kind of design. i'd like to learn flash, photoshop, ect professionally along with different types of coding. (don't know much about all that stuff yet, although i think i'm decent with photoshop)

[Abzu]

[quote name="zim"]that's cool, i always found fun editing little bits and pieces of HTML code when i could figure it out. i plan on learning all of it someday.



and with graphic design do you mean things like website logos, banners, layouts, ect? i've thought about going into a career in some kind of design. i'd like to learn flash, photoshop, ect professionally along with different types of coding. (don't know much about all that stuff yet, although i think i'm decent with photoshop)[/quote]

I say avoid HTML 4.01 and earlier and avoid or be wary of courses that want you to use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program like Dreamweaver, nVu, or FrontPage to make pages. Hand coding is best. I've been working in XHTML 1.1 and CSS for awhile now but Ive got my eye on HTML 5. When they get the standard down, it will be the future of page development.



With graphic design, I think anything really. Business logos, layouts, flyers, brochures, cd art, etc.

[zim]

[quote name="abzu"]Full of win: http://www.w3schools.com/



When you settle on an image editor, I can probably find decent tutorials and learning guides for that as well. Most people use Adobe Photoshop, but I prefer Macromedia Fireworks (ver 8, before Adobe bought Macromedia and ruined Fireworks with CS3 and CS4). Some people even prefer The GIMP. I find Fireworks has the best balance between vectors and raster images, as well as the integration between the two.[/quote]



I've always used PS but I've heard of GIMP as an alternative many many times. Do you have any specific dislikes about PS?

[Abzu]

I think it is a brilliant raster (bitmap) application. The GIMP does a killer job of holding up to it as well. But both of those lack in handlling vectors (also called paths) as dynamic objects in an image like Fireworks.