Can anyone learn design

Do you think it is possible for anyone to learn to design websites? I realize some would be more talented at this than others. Or do you think that some people will not have the needed skills?

 

Firstly, I think that some people just have a certain knack for some things. Somethings come easier to some people than to others.
If you want to learn how to create a website, built a computer, etc. It can be done you just have to put in the time to learn.
Which reminds me I never did finish that PHP/MySql book.

 

+1 I'm no designer but I know good design when I see one.

Speaking PHP/mySQL books. I've had one sitting here for 4 years its' like 600 pages. I haven't gotten past the forward yet, lol

 

You're not the only. I have one of those books as well. I bought the book "Whee, I'm a learn and read", next thing I know, the book has been sitting there for a long ass time.

 

I think if you have a good eye for color, then design will come a lot easier.
I've tried to design and it's just not my thing sadly. I can tell if I like or dislike some designs, but coming it with them myself can sometimes be tough and very time consuming..lol.

 

I think design is easier for those who are good at coordinating colors. If you are good at that you can learn the code by studying a little.

 

First, you need a good graphics program, like The GIMP (which is free and open-source) or Adobe Photoshop (costs an arm and a leg but might be worth it, there are smaller editions also that are more affordable). But The GIMP can do a lot of things that Photoshop can, only for free. Then you need a raw bitmap editor like Paint or something. It'll help a lot. (Try Kolourpaint b/c it can handle transparency, it's also free/open-source)

All modern browsers support SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics) now, so you can also use vector graphics programs like Inkscape (another free/open-source program).

With HTML and CSS, you can place graphics anywhere on the page. So in practice, all you need to do is paint your design, and then cut it up into suitable pieces, and place them on the page. Of course, accessible websites need some more work (CSS supports that).

 

Anyone can technically "learn" website designing. They can learn all the languages required, but unless they are motivated, creative, innovative and have plenty of ideas, they may struggle designing a website, as knowledge is not everything.

For some, it do come easy. We dont have to learn much coding, as it comes with us. To be a good designer, its ideas that you require, and not the tools. Anyone can get them for free or pay for it, but not ideas.

 

btw, I'd strongly recommend Krita for those who can't afford Photoshop. Krita is a free and open source graphics package that has features that go far beyond those of The GIMP. You have all of GIMP's filters and layers functionality, plus a lot of tools aimed specifically at graphics artists. Like GIMP, it works well with graphic tablets, I've been using it myself for most drawing and painting for several weeks now.

 

I have never heard of Krita before, though I have heard and used both GIMP and Photoshop. Maybe its not yet as popular as the others. Even GIMP is only gaining popularity because of the high prices charged by Photoshop. So like GIMP, its a free alternative to Photoshop, with all its features ?

 

Yes, sort of. Neither GIMP nor Krita try to emulate Photoshop, they're both independent software packages, but they come pretty close in functionality. Both have a plugin feature which can be used to extend the applications. I'm not sure if any of them supports Photoshop plugins.

My post above has a link to the Krita Wikipedia page. I'll give you some links verbatim here, so you'll recognize them more easily:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krita -- Wikipedia page
http://krita.org/ -- Krita home page
http://krita.org/item/115-krita-on-windows-the-next-step -- explains state of Krita for Windows version
http://www.kogmbh.com/download.html -- Calligra and Krita for Windows download page

(In my "Review of Windows 8 Final" thread in the "Technology & Internet" subforum, you can see a screen shot I made of the Windows version. The unstable developer version has been tested on 64-bit Windows 8, that's why I tried it. link: http://admin-talk.com/threads/42418/#post-480376 )

Krita is part of a larger software suite called Calligra, which is also free and open source software.

On Linux, Krita has been available in distro's repositories for several years now, and it is being improved continuously.

 

I think anyone could learn how to. I definitely don't think it's natural for everyone, though, or that everyone could be phenomenal. It's kind of like teaching someone how to draw. You can teach the mechanics and they can definitely get better. Not everyone will be the most amazing artist after a few classes, though.

 

Indeed. Technique can be learned but without talent the results are often far from optimal.

 

Everyone who wants to become an artist has my respect. Talent -- like beauty -- is in the eye of the beholder, and often debatable: One person likes something, the next person doesn't, and so forth. There's no objective classification for talent. In any profession, only success counts. For instance, lots of music that is successful is often made by people with questionable talent ... at least from my perspective -- but when I then look at how fans of such music react to it, I'm surprised that they do not recognize the lack of talent in that music, quite to the contrary, they think the artists making the music they like are very talented. And also, in design, there is no way of knowing who will like what except by making polls and such. In a web developer setting, the only thing that matters is the customer. When the customer likes your design, and pays you well, you're a successful designer. Nobody will then question your talent.

As a kid, when I wanted to become a cartoonist or comic strip artist, I was often overwhelmed and thought, "oh, these people must be very very talented to make such things, I will never be able to do that", and right there, there's the gotcha that will prevent people from pursuing a particular goal. In German, we have saying "they're only cooking with water too", meaning that most people don't have any magical abilities. When I was much older, and I finally looked deeper into the profession of cartoonist or comic strip artist, I realized it's really a multistep process that is often used: Sketching, inking, erasing and coloring. And nowadays on computers, the erasing stage can be omitted (since the sketch layer need only be hidden).

 

If I could, then anyone can! Seriously, it's not that tough, all you need is a little creativity... which I lack. I started designing using Photoshop, unlike many who prefer to start with simpler things like GIMP. Once you get to learn the basics of Photoshop, it's easier to use any other Adobe program (like Illustrator) and also software from other companies, like Fireworks from Macromedia or Paint.NET. It's not difficult, you can learn everything by yourself if you read good tutorials.

 

Yeah anyone can. There are plenty of Information Technology courses that involve designing your own website.
Best package to try that is free is joomla.org it has a demo and it has an awesome server.

 

These days with all the tools and softwares and resources available to us, anyone can actually learn almost anything. That is exactly how we all learned things from the web. But that certainly doesnt mean that they can use them. Some can design easily because they certainly have a creative eye for such things, and for others even with all the technical backup, it may not be an easy task.