The world of web designing is a complicated one and you can never know too much about its secrets and tricks. If you are curious to learn more about web design, then this post is for you! We’ve gathered a neat collection of tips for beginner web designers which should help every novice understand what are the most important qualities, responsibilities and duties of the successful web designer.
Strive for a Simple Minimalistic Style
Simpler is better – this completely applies to web design. Clutter free & clean websites are usually much more appealing to the eye, so we advise you to try and create simpler, but more original websites. Simplicity is number one design rule for stunning yet attractive creations.
Use Free Website Building Tools
If you want to try out something stranger, then why don’t you give some free website building platforms a shot? WordPress & Tumblr are a great place to start, but if you want something a bit more advanced then we strongly recommend using free website builders like IM creator for creating free websites with no professional skill at all. Such free tools will help you learn a lot about web design, and it will certainly make your first steps as a web designer much easier.
Be Creative with the Navigation
The navigational panel is one of the most important parts of any website, so you must be really careful and strict when building the navigation layout for your newest project. It must be appealing, useful & intriguing, so don’t underestimate this task. Creating a good navigation menu will take a lot of time and stubbornness.
Mind the Fonts You Use
Good typography is an important part of every high quality website, so you must carefully select the fonts you are planning to use for your projects. Stick with a small number of fonts for every project and try out different ideas, effects & sizes until you get it just right. Perfection isn’t easy to achieve, but we guarantee that it will be worth spending a couple of days trying out different fonts in order to get the perfect final result. You should follow expert guidelines to choose the perfect font for your web design.
Keep Performance in Mind
Don’t use too many graphics and always compress them in order to reduce loading times and present the visitors with better performance & overall user experience.
Use Communicative Graphics
Simple graphical elements are thing of the past. Nowadays web designers take advantage of unique & appealing communicative graphics that help the user to engage with the content on the website.
Focus On Responsiveness
No matter how good your web design idea is, if you don’t manage to make it cross browser compatible and implement a responsive layout in it, then you probably won’t make it big. Responsiveness is a must-have quality for every modern website.
Always Design to Stand Out
Your main goal must be to stand out in the crowd. Every web designer borrows different techniques, effects and ideas from their competitors, but you mustn’t copy everything! Take some ideas, but spin them a little and add some personal touches to make them truly amazing. Be creative, be unique, and your web design skills might just become the most desired thing on the market.
SEO, SEO, SEO!
Search engine optimization is one of the biggest things in the world of web design and web development, and it is your duty not to underestimate its importance. A SEO-ready template is more likely to sell out because it saves a lot of the buyer’s time and money. Get familiar with the latest SEO trends and innovations, and implement them in your project.
Don’t be Afraid to Collaborate
Collaborating with other designers is a great idea to make your projects a bit fresher, but it is also a neat way to build new connections and maybe lay the foundations of something bigger. Collaborating is a must if you want to quickly get better at what you do – you’ll gain invaluable experience and you’ll have the opportunity to work with some of the best in the branch.
Freebies Aren’t Bad
Many expert designers avoid freebies, because they see them as low quality materials for their projects, but these giveaways can be gold for beginners. Freebies can help you get your hands on unique fonts, graphics and other materials that you can use for your future projects without paying a single dollar. If you are new to web design, then freebies will save you a lot of money and will help you improve your projects.
Don’t Stop Practicing
Practice must become an important part of your everyday activities if you want to be more successful. This doesn’t apply just to web designing, but also to every other job or hobby you can think of. Practice HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Photoshop, Corel & PHP skills regularly, and you’ll have a bigger chance of succeeding.
Go With the Trend
As a beginner, you must know that the trend is your friend. 2015 is the year of the ghost buttons? Well, then go with them! Parallax-based websites are becoming more popular? Give them a try and see if you can compete with the best! Find some good resources and follow the latest web design trends in order to be one step ahead of your competition.
BIO:
This post has been written by Shah, a professional writer and blogger interested in writing about various aspect of design, tech, ecommerce and inspiration at designermag.org. You can join Shah at Google+ or Twitter.
