The Prerequisites of Design

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by Aaron West

There are a lot of web designers in the world. If you don't believe me, check out the 6,000 listings from the Open Directory Project. There are even more out there who would like to become designers, and are just awaiting the right opportunity. I encounter these people often. When they find out about my career I am usually bombarded with questions. I rarely mind. In fact, I usually try to be more than helpful, and will do my best to follow up on their progress.

I've noticed a trend in the questions lately. Most people understand that in order to become a quality web designer one must learn HTML, Web Graphics, etc. In the past I had always suggested that people learn HTML first, and then perhaps Photoshop or some other graphics program. Lately many people have decided that they weren't quite ready to learn either and have asked me what they need to learn before they learn HTML, Photoshop, etc.

That's what I will be talking about here.

Since I've been working with computers for a long time and have been a designer for several years, I tend to forget about the basic literacy one needs in order to consider doing it as a profession. Because of my experience, these things came naturally for me, and I have taken them for granted ever since. For this reason I have a lot of trouble fielding questions like this.

So what does one need to learn before they can learn design?

File Management: Since a web site is a collection of files, one needs to understand how to manage files, move files from one place to another, and directory/folder structures in general. Many people are intimidated by the UNIX directory system on the web, but this is easy to tackle once you're familiar working with the Finder (Mac) or Explorer (PC)

Multitasking: In order to design for the web, one must be able to juggle many tasks at once. I usually keep several programs open at the same time while working, such as a text editor, a graphics tool, a browser window (or several), an FTP program, and more. You will need to be able to do this as well.

Text Editing: No, this is not word processing. One must understand text formats and know how to edit them on the fly, whether this be with Simpletext, Notepad, or Textpad. You will need to know your text editor well before you even begin to think about coding.

Browsing: If you plan to author for the web, you need to understand your medium backwards and forwards. This means being familiar with multiple browsers, how to navigate within sites, how to use search engines, and Internet concepts such as URLs and protocols. While many of these will be learned during the learning process, it is a good idea to be equipped.

There are several other areas that are worth understanding. If you have the time, try to research fonts, graphics, the domain name system, Internet telephony, and different file formats.

We don't provide many tutorials on these topics here. If you would like to learn more about general computing matters, I suggest you check out the following sites:

Help2Go: This is probably the best I have seen when it comes to Beginner and Intermediate computer training.

About the Web: This site has several articles for the beginner on the world wide web.

The Sharpened.net Glossary: This site has an extensive glossary Internet terms.

Whatis.com: This site explains just about everything. It doesn't give much more than a definition, but can be extremely helpful in finding a starting point.

If you still need help, you are more than welcome to ask questions in our General Forum. Don't worry, there is no such thing as a stupid question. We were all 'newbies' at one time.