Today is a milestone day in my 17-year design career. A friend, and fellow print designer, and I have (finally) decided we are going to learn web design. Okay, maybe that sounds anticlimactic, but for us it’s a bit of a big deal. Because the two of us have been print designers for almost half our lives. We revel in paper, ink, and InDesign.
For the past year or more, we’ve hemmed and hawed about not knowing any (me) or much (him) web stuff.
The inspiration that put us over the top was this. And we’re starting with this book: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML . I ordered mine today. I hope Jim did, too. We talked about and decided to do this together. Like book buddies, or a book club of two, so we can keep each other accountable and encourage each other.
I thought it would be interesting to document the process. And maybe it will help us to keep at it. A bit of cyber peer pressure if you will. Jim doesn’t know about the blog yet, but I’m hoping he’ll write some posts as well. (BTW, this is my first blog, so I’ll be figuring that out as well.)
Wish us luck?
blog on sister!
Comment by Michael — February 5, 2009 @ 11:55 PM
It is about time! I can’t wait to see your progress and read your thoughts. If I can do it..you can too. It’s all about css and html and hire a great developer for the trick stuff.
Comment by cathy — February 6, 2009 @ 8:17 AM
Hey sister — I’ve been feeling the pressure to do it too. I think I’ll order the book also and try to follow along with your progress. I love print and ink, and consider myself pretty much on top of the print technology, but a specter haunts the edges of my dreams: my great-uncle who was a paste-up guy and illustrator in New York who lost his job when he wasn’t able to keep up with the introduction of the Mac and Pagemaker.
It just befuddled him, and I coulndn’t comprehend how he wasn’t able to keep up, but he really was lost when technology moved forward. And I’m concerned that my eyes glaze over in the same way when I hear web guys get going. I can piddle around in Dreamweaver, but I’m missing a big part of the picture.
Anyway, best of luck on the venture, and kudos for having the initiative to get with it!
Marcos
Comment by Marcos Harkness — February 6, 2009 @ 9:54 AM
You can do it!!! The hardest part is the first part, once you start learning you’ll be surprised at how you will pick it up!!
Comment by Kat — February 6, 2009 @ 10:08 AM
The HTML & CSS aren’t too hard to learn. You’ll be hooked with the amazing things you can do with a few lines of code. Before you know it you’ll be expanding in to Flash, JavaScript, PHP and more! Good luck!
Comment by Alisa — February 6, 2009 @ 3:25 PM
Goodbye gutters, galleys and gang-runs. Godspeed.
Comment by Paul — February 13, 2009 @ 10:39 AM