How To Become a Web Designer: The Basics.
Hey! My names Kered and I am a Full-Time, Freelancing Web Designer and I want to share my insights, along with what I have learned, while providing useful resources that may help you with your web designing and development journey!
I began learning and studying Web Design earlier this year (2021), where I began scouring the internet for ''How To Videos'' and trying to take in as much information as possible.
I initially began my journey with a strong focus on Web Development and learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, as time went on, I began finding myself more interested and intrigued by the design aspect of creating a website, rather than the development aspect of it.
Transitioning over to Web Design I started watching various videos online, trying to gain as much knowledge as possible as there are many excellent YouTube channels out there that are rich in knowledge and provide a lot of information towards Web Design, Freelancing, and business in general, for example, Flux, TheFutur, Payton Clark Smith, and many more.
I came across a wonderful Udemy course that has provided so much knowledge and resources in understanding Web Design.
(I would highly recommend this course)
The course that helped me greatly, and provides a huge pool of information is the: Complete Web Design: from Figma to Webflow to Freelancing course by Vako Shvili.
This course takes you through :
- Learning how to design beautiful websites using Figma, an interface design tool used by designers at Uber, Airbnb, and Microsoft.
- You will learn how to take your designs and build them into powerful websites using Webflow, a state-of-the-art site builder used by teams at Adobe, Dell, NASA, and more.
- You will learn secret tips of Freelance Web Designers and how they make great money freelancing online.
This course is great for anyone interested in Web Design!
I personally believe that we can never stop learning, and I therefore try my best to always find more insightful and helpful videos, blogs and articles within the field of freelancing and web design.
The process that I follow when designing and developing a website, will always start in Figma.
This is where I:
- Create Mood-boards (Providing both the client and myself with examples of websites to help provide a unified understand and goal of what we're creating)
- Making Wireframes (Wireframes provide a skeleton outline of the website and help highlight where sections of a website will be located, placement of images/text and provide a general outline of how a website will be structured.) (Wireframes are meant mainly to provide an outline of the website, and this process doesn't usually include design principles like website hierarchy, typography, and use of color. This is done next.)
- Prototyping / Designing (Here you will start incorporating your design work, choosing the font(s) you will be using, text size, typography, images/illustrations, placements (alignments), color (palettes), and more.
I would HIGHLY suggest designing your website FIRST in Figma and then moving it over to Webflow.
Figma is also great for collaboration and provides you with many tools to share your work with colleagues and clients. It lets you share your work with clients/colleagues and receive feedback on the current progress of the project.
I personally use the desktop version of Figma as I find it slightly more useful.
''Webflow empowers designers to create beautiful, responsive websites—without writing a single line of code, or relying on a developer. Its drag-and-drop interface looks, feels, and works like familiar desktop design tools, and writes clean, semantic code any developer would be proud of. ''
Webflow is an amazing tool, really it is.
Webflow allows you to create responsive, mobile-friendly, and beautiful websites. It provides the designer with a lot of freedom when creating a website. The design interface is extremely powerful and allows you to create stunning, unique websites.
You can also access a library of courses, tutorials, articles, and more through Webflow University that can help you with any questions or problems you may have.
You can build your site for free and take as long as you need. Just add a site plan for more pages, and a custom domain when you’re ready for the world. - Here is a link to their pricing structure.
There are so many excellent platforms on the web to help you find work, from freelancing websites to social media networking.
Below I will mention the platforms that I have used along with the platform that I feel has been the post impactful for me:
Social Media Platforms:
- LinkedIn
- Facebook
- Instagram
Freelancing Websites:
- Freelancer
- Fiverr
- UpWork
I believe that all the above platforms can assist you in finding work/customers and help you connect with people in your industry along with meeting potential clients.
The Platform that I recommend the most:
Personally, I have enjoyed using UpWork the most, and truly feel that it has been the most positively impactful platform to use as a Web Designer.
For me, I feel that UpWork provides a great balance between people ''looking for work'' and people ''offering work''.
Danny, from Freelance to Win provides many great resources and tips on Winning Proposals, Jobs for Beginners, and a generally awesome approach to Freelancing.
Nonetheless, each platform may work differently for each freelancer!
Tip: When submitting proposals, I would suggest in approaching each proposal as a unique proposal/offering and to try your best to avoid copying and pasting your previous proposals.
Try your best to keep each proposal unique and always provide ways (In your cover letter) of how you can help them achieve their goals when submitting your proposal.
There are so many excellent FREE resourceful tools out there that can help you throughout your Web Design journey!
I will list them below and hopefully you may find them helpful too:
- Notion (For managing my day to day work)
- Grammarly (Making sure my writing is correct and accurate)
- Landing Page FYI (This is an awesome website)
- Image Compressor (To shrink file sizes of images without losing too much quality)
- Hashtag Generator (For social media posts)
- BG Remover (For removing the background in an image)
- Discord & Microsoft Teams
- Later (For managing social media postings)
- SketchAppSources (This is another awesome website)
- Unsplash & Pexels (For Stock Photos, that do not require attribution) (But its always nice if you're able to provide attribution as it does help)
None of the above are affiliated links, they are my personal preference.
Becoming a Web Designer is an amazing, exciting and enjoyable opportunity and journey to be.
Enjoy every moment, while striving to learn more, and help where you can.
And try your best to meet the needs of your clients, and do your best to give them 110% of the service you're providing (9/10 they will appreciate this)
I hope this brief summary helps you and please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or need any help!
Have a blessed day!