[Ehab]

hey everybody,
i wanted to get some feedback about this. i have a couple of months to train and take classes before i hopefully get hired on by my brother-in-law as a graphic/web designer for his new company. ive been doing web design for a few years now but it has mostly been self taught and practiced. i can edit html and css to fit my needs, been trying to handcode lately more than use dreamweaver, and ive been taking some illustrator classes as well. i mainly use fireworks for any images i need and i can produce icons and logos and decent layouts with a fair amount of trial and error. i also use swishmax with a decent degree of proficiency. but going through this forum and other designer websites, everything i do feels outdated and hacked somehow !! theres a lot of talent and very professional and intimidating terms and technologies out there.. and i would like to start getting up to date with all of it, the right way. a few for example that im hearing for the first time are cms and joomla and ajax and wordpress. i was wondering if you guys had any recommendations on what to start learning or focusing on, and what are the current web technologies that most of the professional web designers need to be familiar with and know how to apply ?? i greatly appreciate any input.. thanks

[bluesage]

you need to readup and surf the web to get informed, its the easist way :-)

some places to start:

Digital Web Magazine
A List Apart: A List Apart
meyerweb.com
Smashing Magazine
Web Design from Scratch - Free web design course, web basics, web page layout, free web design tutorials, design case studies, and web design examples
useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design

inspiration and reference:
Most Inspired | Home
Web Creme | Web design inspiration

color:
COLOR IN MOTION / Main

you should master photoshop for professional work. definately need to hand code

try to understand the differences between different web browsers.

Browser Statistics

[Shiro]

Edit: I started to write a long post, then remembered we already have a thread for this: beginners web design

That should be a great thread to get you started. Read it, use it, absorb it.

[Hunch]

Originally Posted by Ehab

i was wondering if you guys had any recommendations on what to start learning or focusing on, and what are the current web technologies that most of the professional web designers need to be familiar with and know how to apply ?? i greatly appreciate any input.. thanks

I realize that this is going to sound unnecessarily harsh, but the fact that you need to ask this level of question suggests you're not cut out for this profession.

[pgo]

Choose what area of web development you want to focus on. Here at work we have:

Interaction designers (wireframes!), visual designers (pretty things in Photoshop!), and developers (XHTML, CSS, DOM/JS!).

Or do you want to be a server-side developer, mastering languages like PHP, Ruby, ASP/.NET, JSP, Ruby, Python, SQL...

[Ehab]

bluesage, haku: Thanks for the links I am going down the list one by one, probably gonna take me a few days to read through it all properly.

Hunch: I probably could had rephrased it better, but don't be too quick to pass judgement on ppl I was merely trying to ask what were the 'current' trends in web design and get some feedback straight from real designers, instead of browsing through a million websites each with a different opinion and approach. I think thats a legit question..

pgo: I want do it all !! ..but I realize thats not possible in a couple of months. I think I'll shoot for visual designer/developer according to your list. My strongest skill is Photoshop, or Fireworks at the moment, followed by XHTML, CSS. I would like to be able to create stuff in Photoshop then handcode it all into a professional, cross-browser compatible layout and not take forever to do it. I would also like to be able to pull off things like shopping carts and logins, but thats a little down the line..